MICHAEL BROSS, 1789 & ANNA MARIA KNEISZLER, 1787

Michael Bross, our ancestral great grandfather, was born 6 October 1789 in Egenhausen, Schwarzenberg, Wuerttemberg. Michael married 1^st our ancestral great grandmother, Anna Maria Kneiszler about 1807. Anna Maria was born 1 September 1787 in Untermusbach, Wuerttemberg and died 22 September 1823 in Wittenberg, Bessarabia, Russia. Michael and Anna Maria had the following seven children:

A handed down story says that our ancestral great grandmother Anna Maria Kneiszler worked in the fields until the day before she gave birth to Johann Georg. She was alleged to have said something like, “I must go home now and get ready.” Apparently the birth was difficult for her; she died the same day of 22 September 1823 when Johann Georg was born.

It is not known where Michael married Anna Maria Kneiszler but their son, our ancestral great grandfather, Adam Bross was born 12 April 1814 in Groembach, Laznowska-Wola, Poland and would have been a baby in arms on the long difficult trek to establish a new home in Bessarabia. Michael was age 25 and Anna Maria was 23. Michael’s parents Johann Adam and Agatha were each 55 years old. The Bross family left Poland to accept free land offered by the Russian Tsar, Alexander I, in Bessarabia, Russia.

In 1814, commissioner Krueger, came to Poland himself to hand out the necessary passes to the hard pressed Germans for their emigration to Russia. They left in several groups under the leadership of a Russian official.

Joyfully the colonists, numbering 138 families, followed the call of the Imperial Government of Russia and left in September of 1814, from Groembach and Sulzfeld, under the leadership of the colonists Bernhard Bohnet and Martin Vossler. They were so poor that close to a third of their company were transported by horses and a portion had to make this journey of about 600 miles on foot, with push carts. This group of travellers entered the Tsarist state of Russia at Uschtschiluk, on the Bug river and arrived at their own expense at the assigned quarters. These were partly in the Moldavian villages near Kischinew, and partly in villages near the city of Bender, where some stayed from November 1814 to June 1815, some until the spring of 1816.

Upon the order of the Imperial Government, 80 families moved to the appointed settlement place in the Kirgisch valley, and the remaining 58 families followed there in the spring of 1816, so that the colony was completely settled in 1816. Upon arrival of the settlers, nothing was found but steppe land covered with high grass, in which two Bulgarian kirschlers, called Slatow and Margowski, held tenure, so they were forced to erect houses constructed of woven shrubs.

It appears the settlers were getting established before the authorities had completed the surveying and before village names had been settled on for the parcels. At first the parcels were numbered and then replaced with temporary names. Later, official “battle” names were established to honour the Russian victories against Napoleon’s armies in 1812. Some remained well known by their locally popularized names.

For the construction of such dwellings, the settlers received the necessary brushwood, 4 corner posts and 2 faden (1 faden = 3 meters) of reeds for roof construction. They received the necessary doors and windows, 1 plank for the construction of a bench and 15 rubles B.A. (bank assignation) for building costs. As far as implements were concerned, each family received a wagon without iron wheel rims, a plough with share and counter, one harrow, 2 scythes, 2 sickles, an iron shovel, a hoe, a set of harnesses, a set of sharpening tools, other small implements, a pair of steers for draft animals, and 1 cow; and for the sowing of crops, 1600 pounds of wheat and 800 pounds of potatoes, and for subsistence, each person received upon arrival on the steppe for about 1 ½ years, 1 pud (1 pud = 16.38 kilograms) of meal flour, from the storehouse in Tarutino.

Although the Imperial Government had made it its business to lighten the difficult situation by means of all possible support, this kind of intention was very much weakened by the greed of the suppliers, especially by a man named Pollnor, therefore the colonists received very meagre support in livestock, and in addition to this, half of their food was spoiled. The promised 5 kopeks a day was not given to them at all, so they had to use the money that they had laid aside, which had been saved to establish their own economic support. As a result, they had to go abroad to seek day labour work to earn enough for their necessary daily subsistence, and as a result, they were hindered in the development of their planned agriculture.

The management of their farms was strongly hindered by the fact that the colonists had received so few strong draught animals, so that three or four farmers had to be harnessed together in order to put a plough to work. Many families had to get their meagre amount of sowing seed into the ground by the use of a hoe or whatever they could use. This way the settlers wealth increased only slowly and with the greatest difficulty.

After the founding of this colony, the name used was Wuerttemberg, after the settler’s country of origin, and then later it was Marienthal; but some years later it was honoured with the name Malojaroslawetz at the request of the government, most likely in remembrance of the memorable battle of Malojaroslawetz on October 24, 1812.

The Bross family was among those that founded the Bessarabian village of Wittenberg.

After 6 years, in which the settlers had strengthened themselves through their diligence, and during which time they had procured stronger draught animals, the whole village agreed that the site upon which the village was founded had not been a good selection. The village was located 12 wersts (1 werst = 1.06678 kilometers) away from the eastern border of their land. On account of this, the colonists wished that the one community of Malojaroslawetz be divided in two, especially because, by the way the colony was laid out, the place of each farm had been restricted to too narrow a space. Because of this, the congregation placed their wish before the high government authorities and when the approval was given, 69 settlers with their families voluntarily moved in the years 1823-1824 into the Schalscheut Valley. The Bross family were among those who made this move. This valley ran in a north-northwest to a south-southeast direction. It was very well suited for the establishment of a village, as some wells were found whose water could be held by dams. Each farmer could have his own water on his own land. The valley was situated so that it was surrounded on both sides with tall hills. The easterly side appeared to be a nice location for the planting of vineyards and fruit trees, but sad to say, that after a year, the trees withered and died.

Thus, in 1824, the new village was founded in the direction of the above-mentioned valley in two rows of houses built of hollow bricks and covered with reed, the rows being 78 faden apart. Each settler leaving Malojaroslawetz I received 3000 hollow bricks and 6 rubles B.A. (bank assignation) from their remaining neighbours.

Also, right away, a school and prayer chapel house were built under one roof of the same material. Before the establishment of the new colony upon the location where it was founded, there lived a Kischler (member of a certain sect) by the name of Borsch. This is why the new colony was called Borschtal, until the higher government named it Malojaroslawetz II.

When finished with the building of their houses, the residents of Malojaroslawetz II devoted themselves immediately with the planting of trees and vineyards, which crowned the settlers’ efforts when they prospered; the location of the vineyards was very well chosen and favoured success. In 1825, 36 farmers planted 36 vineyards near the west side of the village; on the eastern side of the mountain slope, 33 farmers established vineyards in which they planted 1500 to 2000 vines. By 1828 they enjoyed an abundant gathering of grapes. This success increased the settlers’ incentive even more and so even more planting sites on the eastern slopes had to be surveyed and each farmer could get an additional piece of land of ½ desjatine which by 1835 were entirely planted with 1200 vines.

Although there were exceptions, the new settlers to Bessarabia tended to band together to form villages that were solidly Swabian and Platt dialect German-speaking. Virtually all were Lutheran Protestants, although some were Separatists, at odds with the established church and looking to Russia as a sort of "promised land."

A typical colony consisted of long streets with farm yards on either side that included a house and barns, a threshing place, straw stacks and orchards. Farmland (every family received land as personal and hereditary property when they came to Bessarabia) was located near the colony.

Life in the beginning was difficult, as the first settlers had little to start their new lives and needed to learn to farm in the different climate of this treeless steppe. But soon the Prairie-like grass was replaced by fields of wheat, barley, oats, rye and maize. The production of grapes for wine was also an important part of agriculture in Bessarabia. Garden produce and fruit was plentifully grown. Horse, cattle, sheep, and hog breeding was also an important industry.

In the Black Sea area, usually the colonists were not permitted to divide the homestead land given to each family. It had to be handed down to an heir, usually the youngest son. Fathers often had to buy land for their other sons, so a great deal of property gradually was bought by the colonists. Large-sized families and a growing need for land led to the establishment of daughter colonies and further settlement. The population among German Bessarabian settlements climbed to more than 33,000 by 1861.

Home life, church and school were closely linked among the Germans of Russia. The church supervised instruction in religion and the study of German. Because of this influence, the church helped to preserve the original German language, culture and religion, even though the colonists quickly lost all contact with the German fatherland. The villages, like German islands in a Russian sea, took on only minor characteristics and a bit of the cultural life of the larger Russian population.

In 1840 a massively constructed school house was built for 110 school children, which included accommodations for a church-school teacher. In 1848, a large government office was built of stone and roofed with tile. A large building of stone with a tile roof was finished in 1835. This was the village storehouse.

The space between the two rows of houses was filled with vegetable gardens and orchards. When a traveller, approaching on the road through the steppes and fields to the height of the hills, looks down on the valley, a friendly view presents itself to him as he discovers a neat settlement, regularly built houses, surrounded by stone walls, orderly gates, pastures, poplars and acadia trees. A person’s glance will be involuntarily drawn to the cheerful little church standing in the middle of it all. Upon a closer view, the traveller sees in front of the house, a garden bordered with various fruit trees, and behind the farmyard on the hill slopes, several new gardens and vineyards. Many buildings of brick were replaced with big stone houses.

The entire land surface was covered with black soil 2 ½ feet thick, except for a few hillsides, which consisted of siliceous soil followed by sand, which contains one or two layers of quarry stone. The ground was suitable for the cultivation of winter and summer wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, corn, legumes, potatoes, and if the weather is very favourable, also various vegetables.

Stone quarries are found here and there on the hillsides, deep under the earth. Some of the inhabitants used these stones for the erection of their farm buildings and street stone walls.. They have quarried with great effort and often with danger.

A particular event that influenced the destiny of the colonist was the campaign against the Turks in 1827. During the passage of the Russian troops, some damage occurred to the colonists in supply teams of horses and billeting the soldiers. Over the years there were a number of crop failures with complete losses in the years 1822, 1823 and 1824 when field mice and swarms of grasshoppers ate everything. Beetles ruined vine and fruit blossoms from 1840 to 1847 making the fruit crop scanty. In 1843, a hailstorm destroyed the greater part of the grain crop. In the years 1828-29, the trees and grapevines were hit by a heavy frost. The cattle pest preyed upon much of the cattle in 1834 and 1847.

The settlers prospered despite the hindrances. The settlers enjoyed the tax-free years granted to them and further, received great relief when the government extended the 10 years after which the loan of 1,114 Rubles B. A. had to be repaid. The settlers endeavoured to plant vineyards and orchards to cultivate their fields diligently, and to occupy themselves with the raising of cattle. The women zealously occupied themselves with the spinning, weaving and the processing of sheep wool and flax in winter. In this way, domestic needs such as table linen, bedding and clothes were provided which saved the money which would have been necessary to spend on these things.

Michael Bross married his 2^nd wife, Katharina Leiz, who was born 16 August 1807 at Sulzfeld, Poland. Michael and Katharina had the following six children:

In 1835 Michael and his family moved to the new daughter colony of Dennewitz which had been first settled by 15 farm families who began the construction of their homes in the spring of 1834. Little by little further families trickled into Dennewitz.

The steppe land of Dennewitz is mostly an even plain intersected by three valleys, running north to south and merging at the end of the village. These valleys contain excellent and healthy spring water. The colony was established in the central valley and each farmer received a 20 X 80 faden parcel to build their home and farmstead. Two rows of houses flank the slopes of the valley, separated by a gorge which was dammed up to create a manmade lake, used for watering livestock and enhancing the beauty of the settlement. Quarries also exist on the site so the new settlers have enough stone to build their homes, barns and walls. The farmers could produce an abundance of produce specific to their area, as well as grain. They were successful with their grapes. They also grew fruit trees.

JOHANN ADAM BROSS, 1759 & AGATHA KALMBACH, 1760

Johann Adam Bross, our ancestral great grandfather, was born 2 December 1759 in Spielberg, Altensteig, Wuerttemberg and died in Bessarabia, Russia. Johann Adam was a peasant farmer. Johann Adam married 1^st Christina Brenner on 31 January 1764 in Egenhausen. Christina was born 13 May 1764 in Egenhausen and died 16 October 1787 in Egenhausen. Johann Adam and Christina had one son:

Johann Adam married 2^nd, our ancestral great grandmother Agatha Kalmbach, daughter of Johann Georg Kalmbach and Christina Schuhmacher of Groembach on 8 April 1788 in Egenhausen, Schwarzenberg, Wuerttemberg. Agatha was born 6 February 1760 in Groembach, Wuerttemberg. Johann Adam and Agatha had the following seven children:

About 1799 Johann Adam and Agatha were living in Groembach, Germany and in 1800 emigrated to Preussisch (Prussian), Poland, where they are mentioned in the parish history of the Swabian village of Groembach, Laznowska Wola, Poland as an original settler. Groembach was a few miles southeast of Lodz, Poland, in the Prussian zone. They were farmers in Wuerttemberg, and were granted land to farm in Poland by the Prussians. They were a family of four members which included our ancestral great grandfather Michael who would have been about ten years old. His brother must have been Johann Georg at the age of five. They were members of the colony of Groembach of 361 souls who established 82 settlements in the domain post of Laznow. The Polish name of their village was called Laznowska Wola.

Johann Adam Bross was our first Bross ancestor who left Germany looking for land. In 1795 the Prussians had gained about 1/3 of Poland as a result of a treaty with Russia and Austria, known as the Partition of Poland. Because the Prussians were at war with France the landowners of Poland decided to flee. Many Poles sided with France and moved to Paris. The remaining Polish armies fought with France as Napoleon waged wars with Austria, Prussia, Holland, Italy, Spain, parts of Africa and even settlements in India.

This land of South Prussia where these German families began to settle were covered in virgin forest. When they arrived, the farmers lived first in provisional lodgings, places such as inns, stables, and barns, until they could take possession of their assigned parcels of land. Upon receiving their farmstead, they moved themselves and their possessions into the woods on their assigned land and built brushwood-covered huts and shelters dug into the earth. These provided them with housing through summer and winter for about four years. The first four years were tax-free for the farmers. They also received clearing money and tools to help on their work of clearing their forests. In 1805, the houses, stables, and barns, built at state-expense by the office for settlement, were finally ready for use. The clearing of the woods was mostly carried out by Pomeranian lumberjacks paid by the settlers. The farmers, themselves overloaded with work and without experience in felling trees, had to employ the lumberjacks to help them. Shrubbery and tree stumps were cleared away. The newly reclaimed, sandy and damp land had to be dug up; tree roots had to be removed. Drainage channels were planned and bridges were needed. Six years after the settlers had arrived they were able to cultivate their lands for the first time. The uncut lumber, owned by the Prussian state, had not yet been taken away and proved to be a hindrance to work in the fields. From 1806-1807 on, the farmers were supposed to begin paying the so-called inheritance interest. Normally, this should not have caused a problem. But because of low demand for lumber, the Prussian government had not yet removed the waiting wood from the property of the farmers. Because the drainage channels had not yet been built, almost the whole crop was lost and the winter seed grain was completely lost to water damage. So, here too, as in their homeland, the farmers fell into difficulties. (info from Friedhold Brost)

The greater part of Poland falls within the province of the Great Plain of Europe. The terrain consists predominantly of undulating plains, alluvial lowlands, and marshes. Close to the Carpathian Mountains there is an abundance of trees and forests. The temperature varies from -37 Fahrenheit in the winter, to +95 in the summer.

For a few years there were no serious conflicts in Poland. In an attempt to break Napoleon’s power, the nations of Europe formed the Fourth Coalition, consisting of Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden. Napoleon defeated the Prussians and took Berlin, then defeated the Russians taking Friedland. The result was French control of Poland and the formation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. However, Napoleon was not about to allow the Polish armies and Noblemen to abandon Napoleonic wars going on elsewhere in Europe. As a result the Poles gradually returned to their homeland to reclaim their estates. Beginning in about 1808 Poles began returning and evicting the German intruders. It is known that the Germans became impoverished in Poland when their livelihood was taken from them. The Germans could not go back to Wuerttemberg as they would be persecuted. They became closer together and waited until 1814 when the Germans were invited to settle in Bessarabia.

After the victory of Napoleon over Prussia in 1807, the area in southern Prussia which the Swabian settlers had made their home, became part of the newly-founded Polish Duchy of Warsaw. The settlers again had disturbing questions about their future. The year 1807 was a year of excessive drought and because of these conditions the Germans presented a petition to their new Polish masters. They pleaded for the postponement of their hereditary interest payments. They had supplied horses to the Polish army without remuneration, as well as textiles. Despite their pleas, that they would have to sell off the last of their livestock which would cause them a severe emergency, the Poles insisted that all payments must be met no later than after the harvest. In addition the Polish nobility and the estate owners treated them with oppressive despotism,. Vassals of the nobles drove German farm owners from their fields and made ownership claims on their harvests. The German settlers found themselves wholly abandoned to Polish whims. All these circumstances led to the complete impoverishment of the farmers. They were now poorer than upon their arrival from Germany. The Germans were now planning to emigrate. The Poles tried to hinder the departure of the settlers but their efforts met with little success. (info from Friedhold Brost)

Russia had received the province of Bessarabia from the Ottoman Turks on May 28, 1812, in the Peace of Bucharest which ended another series of wars with Turkey for control of territory on the Black Sea. In 1813, to promote an orderly settlement, Tsar Alexander I issued a proclamation to survey the southern portion of Bessarabia, locally known as the Bujak, a Tatar word meaning “angle,” because of its triangular shape.

Karl Stumpp’s book The Emigration From Germany to Russia in the Years 1763 – 1862 states that; “The massive emigration from Russia in 1814 was preceded by the scarcely noticed emigration of 1804 from Neu-Sulzfeld and the area around Pabianitz. However, this soon came to a standstill, especially when Russia discontinued its policy of immigration and recruitment. Political events now occurred which caused discontent and unrest among the new settlers who had largely come from Wuerttemberg. After the collapse of Prussia the Polish Insurrection broke out in 1806/07. In that critical situation the Swabians who were living in isolated settlements suffered much tribulation and hardship. The passage of the French troops on their way to Russia, the battle of Eylau, the Austrian campaign, the retreat of the French from Russia (1813), the coming of the Russian forces of occupation, especially the Cossacks, the new government in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw where the Russians drew the long bow, the plundering and looting – all this brought about tax burdens, poverty, fear and insecurity. Most seriously affected were the recent Swabian settlers, who had not yet found roots and had hardly built stable dwellings or established themselves. In this situation the manifesto of Alexander I (Nov. 28, 1813), calling for “voluntary emigration to Russia” came at the right time. In the proclamation the Czar re-iterated with suitable adaptations, the promises and privileges which Empress Catherine II had made to the Volga German settlers, and which Alexander I extended to the settlers of the Black Sea region and the South Caucasus. Bessarabia, which Russia had acquired in 1812 from Turkey, was now to be settled and cultivated. Alexander issued an edict in which the settlers in Poland were offered these privileges:

Recruiters – among them a certain Krueger – were soon found who saw the chance of earning some money. The district of Laznow and the community of Groembach experienced the largest emigration. From here in the beginning of 1814, a sizable group of emigrants, under the leadership of Bernhard Bohnet and Martin Vossler (both settled in Alt-Postal, Bessarabia) came to Bessarabia and into the already existing German villages near Odessa. “Three men are engaged in the enterprise: the chief magistrate, who effectively aided the recruitment and did good business; a local landowner, who sought to obtain an estate at a cheap price; and the recruiting commissioner, who filled his quota in a simple way and perhaps was also able to pocket a suitable ‘douceur’”. In some reports there is mention of the abduction of peasants into Russia, where Cossacks also played a vital part.”

The long journeys of our German families to migrate to these new lands were extremely hard. Many people could not survive the rigors demanded of them. Many people died along the way.

In a travel account, published by Dr. Stumpp, is a description of what the travellers had to cope with

JOHANN ADAM BROSS, 1737 & ELISABETHA FREY, 1739

Johann Adam Bross, our ancestral great grandfather, was born 15 October 1737 in Egenhausen, Schwarzenberg, Wuerttemberg and died on 12 November 1807 in Spielberg, Altensteig, Wuerttemberg. Johann Adam was a judge and mayor of Spielberg. Johann Adam married our ancestral great grandmother Elisabetha Frey, daughter of Jacob Frey, a peasant farmer from Schwarzenberg, on 13 February 1759 in Spielberg. Elisabetha was born 5 August 1739 and died 22 April 1806 in Spielberg. Johann Adam and Elisabetha had nine children:

 "The period that followed the Seven Years War of 1756-1763, until the last decade of the century, was relatively peaceful in Europe but it marked the beginning of the first wave of emigration under a call from Catherine the Great of Russia for settlers to the Volga. In the course of her thirty-four year reign Catherine turned Russia into a great-power. After a number of wars against the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) - 1768-74, 1783 and 1787-92 - Russia conquered vast regions south to the Black Sea coast and west to the Dnestr River. In 1783 Catherine annexed the last Mongol Khanate in Crimea, where the people - long intermarried with local Turks - were known as Tartars."

"The French revolution began with the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789. The monarchy fell in 1791 and soon a coalition of nine neighbouring states declared war on the new republic in an effort to restore the monarchy. Early French setbacks were soon reversed and by the end of 1793 the allies were pushed back east of the Rhine. Among the foremost French military leaders was Napoleon Bonaparte. In early 1796 the 26 year old Napoleon was placed in command of the entire French army."

"That same year, French troops invaded the Upper Rhine. The entire Rhine valley, Württemberg, Franconia and Bavaria were occupied. The enemy troops "descended upon the German populace like swarms of hungry wolves. The contributions and requisitionings were terrible. The soldiers abused the land to the utmost: I blush with shame to lead an army that behaves in such an unworthy manner ...", wrote General Jourdan. In 1799 Napoleon staged a coup d'etat and was made First Consul with nearly dictatorial powers."

"With the second and third partitioning of Poland in 1793 and 1795 the country was obliterated as a nation - carved up by Prussia, Austria and Russia. Much of the area around Warsaw and west to Berlin became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. In September 1798 King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia issued an "energetic order to expand the colonization in the newly-annexed provinces of South and New-East Prussia". He also gave instructions to accept only well-to-do settlers. But as it happened some poorer candidates were included when they could provide good evidence of their industriousness and behaviour."

"Prussia at this time was not heavily populated, therefore the Berlin government was much more inclined to see these immigrants come from other parts of Germany. Polish farmers were freed from their bondage to the Polish nobility but years of neglect had left the regions agriculture in primitive conditions compared to that in the German states. The land wasn't the best but it was sparsely populated and had the capacity for a large number of immigrants; the land could provide sufficient opportunity for settlers if the officials would guarantee assistance in starting the settlement process."

"In numerous towns throughout German lands, Prussia organized the recruitment through which the farmers were obtained for the new provinces. The emigrations for sometime were particularly strong from the upper part of Württemberg from Schwarzwald (Black Forest) to the lower part of Odenwald. The immigrants were granted land, equipment, a stipend and six "free" years during which they paid no land taxes. There were even provisions for leniency in later years for times of distress. Military service would be required only of sons born in Prussia."

"They became a part of the group that was later referred to as the "Warschauer Kolonisten" (Warsaw colonists)."

(written by PAUL WHITEHOUSE)

ADAM BROSS, 1657 & ANNA MARIA DRESSLE, 1660

Adam Bross, our ancestral great grandfather, was born 29 December 1657 in Spielberg and died 29 April 1730 in Spielberg. Adam was a peasant farmer and village mayor of Spielberg. Adam married our ancestral great grandmother Anna Maria Dressle, daughter of Christian Dressle and Maria Neff, on 23 June 1679 in Spielberg. Anna Maria was born 11 March 1660 in Spielberg, Altensteig, Wuerttemberg and died 22 February 1735 in Spielberg. Their twelve children were:

“Economic stagnation and slow demographic recovery after the Thirty Years' War made Germany dependent on governmental intervention as a means of stimulating recovery. As centres of economic vitality, the princely courts, attended by an international nobility, exposed Germany to a variety of cultural innovations that originated in other, more prosperous European countries.

“In the second half of the 17th century, German energies were to a large extent still focused on religion. The confessional pluralism legitimized by the settlement of 1648 encouraged emphasis on theological distinctions, exacerbating the move toward religious orthodoxy under way in each denomination since the 16th century. The one genuinely German product of this religious preoccupation was Pietism, a movement within Lutheranism that opposed rigid dogmatism and promoted instead a subjective, mystical devoutness and an emphasis on a pious life guided by love of one's neighbour as well as of God. Influenced by English Puritanism, Pietism was shaped in its theology by Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705) and in its organization by his disciple August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), who established a centre for its promulgation in Halle. There he founded schools, orphanages, medical facilities, and a printing house for publishing cheap Bibles and devotional works, which made Pietism a widely influential program of Evangelical activism. The intensely emotional and mystical flavour of Pietist poetry is preserved in the cantata texts set to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, in whose deeply spiritual church music Protestant chorale singing, another indigenous German product, reached its apogee.”

ADAM BROSS, 1627 & ANNA MARIA KIRN, 1628

Adam Bross, our ancestral great grandfather was born 8 November 1627 in Spielberg, Altensteig, Wuerttemberg. He died 1 March 1676 in Spielberg. Adam married our ancestral great grandmother Anna Maria Kirn, daughter of Jakob Kirn and Barbara Haitzmann, on 24 February 1652 in Spielberg. Anna Maria was born on 11 February 1628 in Spielberg and died on 2 December 1696 in Spielberg. Adam and Anna Maria’s eleven children were:

Only two sons and perhaps one daughter of this family lived to be adults.

There is a museum in the Black Forest of Germany where a visitor can explore how life was lived in the Black Forest/Schwarzwald. They have a website which has a virtual tour of Black Forest farm life from about 1599 through to the 1800s. Here is a description of what the Black Forest Museum is about....

ADAM BROSS, 1598 & ANNA KIRN, 1600

Adam Bross, our ancestral great grandfather, was born 5 November 1598 in Spielberg, Altensteig, Wuerttemberg. He died 5 February 1643 in Altensteig, Wuerttemberg. Adam was a daily labourer. Adam married our ancestral great grandmother Anna Kirn, daughter of Stephen and Dorothea Kirn, on 28 September 1624 in Spielberg. Anna was born on 19 November 1600 in Egenhausen, Schwarzenberg, Wuerttemberg and died 8 August 1672 in Egenhausen. They had one known son:

In the village of Calw which was not very far from Altensteig, and only about 20 kilometers by air as the crow flies northeast from our ancestral family’s village of Spielberg, the following dramatic event occurred:

"Johann Valentin Andreae, a Protestant pastor in Calw, wrote down his recollections in the book, “A Swabian Pastor in the Thirty Years War.” The misery began with the defeat at Noerdlingen. The imperial troops were in Stuttgart and Tuebingen. The city walls of Calw were able to protect against thieving mobs but were hardly a barrier to any army equipped with cannons. On 8 September 1634 the word was broadcast that the enemy was approaching. Panic broke out in the city, citizens pressed out through the gates, with no idea where they would go. They had let themselves be frightened by a false alarm. A small part of the population were amusing themselves with music, dancing, gambling and drinking in the middle of the market square. On 10 September Andreae learned that the Stuttgart Protestant clergy were being badly mistreated which later turned out to be untrue. He was a zealous defender of the faith, and feared what the Catholic troops would intend for him. He fled into the mountains with a number of Calw citizens. He and his companions felt fear deep in their bones, and they avoided the good roads so they would not run into the hands of the enemy knights. They climbed up- and downhill over steep, difficult forest paths. Several times they encountered people in the wilderness. But each time they were people who also found themselves in flight. In the evening they sought shelter in a lonely farmstead. The farmer refused to send the exhausted refugees away. But around midnight he woke in fear. They moved on. In the darkness they reached high ground that allowed a wide view of the pitch dark forest and saw to the east a sky turned red. Calw was burning! Andreae finally found refuge in a field shed in the deeply cut Lauterbach valley. A good natured forest peasant provided him with food."

"At the end of September, the refugee pastor received news from Calw that he was needed to come home and that the worst had been endured. Full of worry, he returned. From a teacher named Lenz he learned that the troops who fell on the city were Bavarians. They immediately began plundering and torturing the citizens, whom they tried to force to reveal where they had hidden money and valuables. Some, who could betray nothing because they had nothing more, were tortured until they died. Many of those who remained behind were now trying to get out of the city. The younger and nimbler fled into the forest. In the night, the soldiers continued their tormenting and did not shrink from martyring old men and women. They destroyed furniture, tableware and anything else they could not take with them. The cries of women and maidens were heard throughout the night. The next day, 83 dead were counted in the city. This was not a war, it was just murder, pillage, theft. More than 450 houses went up in flames."

"Overnight, the once prosperous Calw was reduced to poverty. Since money and foodstuffs had practically disappeared, hunger set in quickly. The people, weakened by hunger, lost their resistance, and diseases broke out. Daily six, seven or more people were taken to their graves. They had 3831 inhabitants and afterwards only 1528 remained. In a half of a year, about 800 people died in the city."

"As for the fate of the soldiers: whoever did not die in battle, did not die from a disease, or was not killed by peasants, ended up as a tramp, a beggar or was crippled for life."

When the bells rang out in 1648, many villages and cities in the German southwest were impoverished from quartering troops, were partly destroyed, burned out. The Duchy of Wuerttemberg had lost two thirds of its inhabitants from hunger and disease, murder and killing. In 1618 it had 350,000 people, in 1648 only 120,000.

MARTIN BROSS, 1543

Our first known ancestral great grandfather, Martin Bross, was born about 1543 in the village of Egenhausen in the Oberant (administrative district) of Schwarzenberg, in the principality of Wuerttemberg. He died about 1608. The name of his wife is unknown but they married about 1568 in Egenhausen. They had the following four children:

Martin Bross and his children were born in the time of the Reformation which occurred in 1517 – 1580. Martin Luther’s theses and writings left no one untouched after 1517. Luther’s theses and writings, thanks to the new capability of printing, could be rapidly copied and disseminated. They followed the great commercial routes and were especially disseminated in the cities. The Evangelical movement gained its greatest increase in territory through the Duchy of Wuerttemberg, in which our Bross family lived.

“The changes that resulted from state building and the Reformation yielded little real benefit for ordinary people. Historians agree that the later 16th century was, for many, a time of economic hardship and social stress. Rapid increase in population (the European population rose by more than half between 1500 and 1700) and, secondarily, the influx of precious metals from the New World were the main causes of an inflationary trend that spanned the entire century and reached painful stages in Germany in the 1590s and early 1600s. Grain prices were especially affected, with the result that an ever smaller share of the ordinary person's budget was available for the purchase of other products. This had several effects, which, at least in outline, are well documented. The quality of nutrition for all but the wealthiest became much worse than it had been in the late Middle Ages, when meat consumption was at an all-time high. Illness and epidemic disease were frequent as the nutritional deficiency was aggravated by a series of bad harvests, perhaps caused by unusually severe winters in the decades after 1560.

“Cities and towns suffered loss of income as the market for their manufactured wares declined. In consequence, municipal guilds lost ground, not only economically but also politically, as their participation in urban policy making was curtailed. There were exceptions to this trend. Craftsmen specializing in the manufacture of luxury cloths and arms found lucrative markets at princely courts; but overall the position of artisans declined. Journeymen could no longer anticipate becoming masters. Artisans employed in traditional handiwork felt the pressure of the putting-out system favoured by merchant capitalists, whereby much production was moved from the town, where artisanal guilds protected their members, to the countryside, where merchants could hire cheaper labour. Division of labour increased, gradually transforming self-employed craftsmen into dependent workers.

“In the agricultural sector, high grain prices and rising land values improved the lot of peasant proprietors, but the greatest beneficiaries were landowning nobles and urban patricians with investments in agriculture. Society was polarized by these developments. A minority of rich peasants lived amid struggling smallholders hard-pressed by feudal lords who maximized their profits by increasing labour and tax burdens (the period has been called a “second serfdom”), and in the cities an upper crust of wealthy merchants and landed aristocrats faced a proletariat, whole sections of which were pauperized by the end of the century. The populous cities, once the glory of Germany, began to play a smaller role, as economic troubles and the centralizing policies of territorial princes decreased their prosperity and sapped their political strength.

“The highly visible contrast between rich and poor and the animosity of the weak against the powerful created tensions among groups and classes. Political and economic power was more concentrated than ever before. Its new centres in Germany were the splendid courts of secular and ecclesiastical princes, whence it was distributed to favoured groups: the nobility, rising in importance again but finding its function limited to the service of rulers, and the upper bourgeoisie, shifting its loyalty from guild hall to palace. For ordinary people, administrative centralization and politically sanctioned Reformation had the effect of imposing more rigid control over their lives. A host of mandates flowed from centres of government, seeking to promote an ethic of order, productivity, and morality by shaping working and domestic activities as well as private habits and attitudes. These inroads caused resentment, and there is evidence of widespread resistance, most of it passive. Under these circumstances, the Evangelical Reformation seems to have made but slight impact on the populace at large, whose effective religion continued to be a mixture of traditional Christianity and folk magic.

“Most people were worse off near the end of the 16th century than at its beginning. The lot of women, in particular, had deteriorated. About 1500 many German women had been at work in numerous urban occupations. But a century later they had been crowded out of all but the most demeaning trades as economic pressures, reinforcing ancient prejudices, eliminated them wherever they offered competition to male craftsmen. In this light, it is not surprising that the period from the 1580s to the 1620s also witnessed a surge of persecutions for witchcraft in Germany (mainly in the southwest and Bavaria). As elsewhere, the witch craze in the empire seems to have been a reaction to the strains of a time of troubles, the actual causes of which, fairly clear now to historians, were hidden from contemporaries.”

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-58163

BEFORE MARTIN BROSS

"In the 16^th century Germany was suffering under a greedy and powerful aristocracy that appropriated land and held the oppressed peasantry in serfdom. This, alongside an equally grasping and cynical church trading in “indulgences”, led to a religious upheaval of the Reformation in the 16^th century."

"Discontent with the church authorities increased. Martin Luther led accusations over corruption, nailing his “95 theses”, an attack against papal abuses, to the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517. Luther was excommunicated by the church, but politically powerful German princes were able to protect him from sentence of death."

"After publication of Luther’s translation of the Bible, the oppressed in Germany were ready to revolt."

It is unknown who was the father of Martin Bross, our first known Bross ancestor. During the time of Martin’s parents and grandparents the living conditions of the peasants in the German southwest at the beginning of the 16^th century was very modest. The increase in taxes and bad harvests led to crisis and there was no improvement in sight.

“In southern Germany the strain of transition in rural society was heightened by the policies of the landlords, both lay and ecclesiastical. Confronted by labour shortages and rising costs, many landlords attempted to recoup their losses at the expense of their tenants. By means of ordinances passed in the manorial courts, they denied to the peasantry their traditional right of access to commons, woods, and streams. Further, they revived their demands for the performance of obsolete labour services and enforced the collection of the extraordinary taxes on behalf of the prince. The peasants protested and appealed to custom, but their sole legal recourse was to the manorial court, where their objections were silenced or ignored. Ecclesiastical landlords were especially efficient, and peasant discontent assumed a strong anticlerical tinge and gave rise to the localized disturbances in Gotha (1391), Bregenz (1407), Rottweil (1420), and Worms (1421). “Disturbances recurred with increasing frequency in the course of the 15th century on the upper Rhine, in Alsace, and in the Black Forest. In 1458 a cattle tax imposed by the archbishop of Salzburg kindled a peasant insurrection, which spread to Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. In Alsace the malcontents adopted as the symbol of revolt the Bundschuh, the wooden shoe usually worn by the peasants. They also formulated a series of specific demands, which included the abolition of the hated manorial courts and the reduction of feudal dues and public taxes to a trifling annual amount. On these fundamental points there was little room for compromise, and the outbreaks were stifled by the heavy hand of established authority. But the rigours of repression added fuel to peasant discontent, which finally burst forth in the great uprising of 1524–25.”

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-58147

A book called The Peasant War in Germany was written by Frederick Engels in the summer of 1850 in London and was published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Revue. It gives the following description of the living conditions of the poor peasants.

“The Peasant War in Germany

“At the bottom of all the classes, save the last one, was the huge exploited mass of the nation, the peasants. It was the peasant who carried the burden of all the other strata of society: princes, officialdom, nobility, clergy, patricians and middle-class. Whether the peasant was the subject of a prince, an imperial baron, a bishop, a monastery or a city, he was everywhere treated as a beast of burden, and worse. If he was a serf, he was entirely at the mercy of his master. If he was a bondsman, the legal deliveries stipulated by agreement were sufficient to crush him; even they were being daily increased. Most of his time, he had to work on his master's estate. Out of that which he earned in his few free hours, he had to pay tithes, dues, ground rents, war taxes, land taxes, imperial taxes, and other payments. He could neither marry nor die without paying the master. Aside from his regular work for the master, he had to gather litter, pick strawberries, pick bilberries, collect snail-shells, drive the game for the hunting, chop wood, and so on. Fishing and hunting belonged to the master. The peasant saw his crop destroyed by wild game. The community meadows and woods of the peasants had almost everywhere been forcibly taken away by the masters. And in the same manner as the master reigned over the peasant's property, he extended his wilfulness over his person, his wife and daughters. He possessed the right of the first night. Whenever he pleased, he threw the peasant into the tower, where the rack waited for him just as surely as the investigating attorney waits for the criminal in our times. Whenever he pleased, he killed him or ordered him beheaded. None of the instructive chapters of the Carolina which speaks of "cutting of ears," "cutting of noses," "blinding," "chopping of fingers," "beheading," "breaking on the wheel," "burning," "pinching with burning tongs," "quartering," etc., was left unpractised by the gracious lord and master at his pleasure. Who could defend the peasant? The courts were manned by barons, clergymen, patricians, or jurists, who knew very well for what they were being paid. Not in vain did all the official estates of the empire live on the exploitation of the peasants.

“Incensed as were the peasants under terrific pressure, it was still difficult to arouse them to revolt. Being spread over large areas, it was highly difficult for them to come to common understanding; the old habit of submission inherited from generation to generation, the lack of practise in the use of arms in many regions, the unequal degree of exploitation depending on the personality of the master, all combined to keep the peasant quiet. It is for these reasons that, although local insurrections of peasants can be found in mediaeval times in large numbers, not one general national peasant revolt, least of all in Germany, can be observed before the peasant war. Moreover, the peasants alone could never make a revolution as long as they were confronted by the organised power of the princes, nobility and the cities. Only by allying themselves with other classes could they have a chance of victory, but how could they have allied themselves with other classes when they were equally exploited by all?”

"Under the sign of the sandal (Bundschuh), that is the farmer’s shoe that tied up with laces, it came to rebellions on the Upper Rhine, in the Bishopric of Speyer, in the Black Forest and in the upper Neckar valley at the end of the 15^th century. In the Autumn of 1524 and the Spring of 1525, peasants came together throughout southern Germany and complained more strongly about the high tributes and the far-reaching dependency on their various lords. Since they found no audience, they assembled together and moved on long marches through the land. They destroyed castles and monasteries, and attempted in this way to succeed in their demands. Other than material and social reasons, reformational concepts also contributed to the bitter struggle between the peasants and their lords. Other than the larger uprisings, there were many regional disturbances, plunderings and torchings that were carried out by peasants. These were their complaints: “We have to produce and slave for the lords. The little that we have, we must deliver up. The lords become richer and richer, while we do not have enough to live on from day to day. They have reserved for themselves the meadows, fields and forests that we peasants used to be able to use. Now we may neither hunt nor fish.”

"The rulers formed a counterattack. The Swabian Union, the alliance of some south German princes to strengthen imperial might, fielded an army against the peasants. The army of the Swabian Union marched through the land and the peasants were defeated which brought to an end, the Peasant’s War."

"The new Protestant faith spread quickly through northern Germany and Scandinavia. By 1555, about four-fifths of all Germans had embraced the new belief. In that year the Peace of Augsburg was reached which recognized that the Protestant faith had an equal status with the Catholic and that each territorial prince and free city would decide which faith should be practised by all residents under their control. Religious restriction was restricted to rulers. Those subjects who could not accept their ruler’s preference had to move to another territory or city, and thousands of Germans did just that. Thus, the religious division of Germany was sealed for centuries."

"The Peace of Augsburg did not permanently settle the religious question in Germany. The Catholic counter-reformation, set in motion in Rome and supported by Hapsburg emperors, heated tensions between German Protestants and Catholics, who formed a Protestant Union and a Catholic League in 1608 and 1609 respectively. All that was needed was a spark in Bohemia to ignite an almost indescribably destructive “Thirty Years War”, on German soil which ravaged this weak and divided land from 1618 until 1648."

THE EARLY BROSS FAMILY

It may be that the Bross family lived in the area of Egenhausen and Spielberg for a long time before family records were kept. A little bit of the history of Egenhausen and Altensteig was kindly translated for me by Mrs. Irmgard Chiang who had lived in the area of our Bross ancestors. These historic events would have affected the lives of our ancestral family.

“The land on this eastern part of the Black Forest was not very suitable for farming and yielded only scarce harvests, thus people had to look for additional income. Many families started their own wooden shingle factory. Later on they also added hop growing which was already done successfully in nearby regions. The hop cultivations needed a lot of stakes in order to support the tender plants during their growing stage. The rich surrounding forests were a good source for the production of these stakes; this in turn proved to be a welcome source of income to underprivileged villages, who could not survive by means of peasant farming alone. Nevertheless, the modest income from shingle and hop productions and the meager harvests from peasant farming was not enough to sustain the ever growing population of Egenhausen. In their search for new ways to supplement their meager income the villagers started to cut stones from the nearby mountain hill called Egenhäuser Kapf, (a now famous landmark of Egenhausen, meaning ‘ top of the hill’). These lime stones were sold to nearby villages and cities. Many paths and roads in the vicinity of Altensteig and Nagold were covered with gravel from these durable lime stones.”

“History shows that in centuries past (see beginning of story above) Germany and most European countries were ruled and governed by noblemen, counts, earls, barons, kings, and so on. In order to keep their dominions safe from intruders, they built castles and fortresses, mostly on nearby hill tops. Altensteig still has a small castle, which is now a protected historic site. The nearby city of Nagold also still has ruins of its fortress (Burg). Many ruins of fortresses throughout the Black Forest are witnesses of these rulers of the past. The poor villagers often suffered hardship when skirmishes, or wars between rulers broke out and handovers from one ruling count to the other didn’t always happen peacefully.”

"June 1, 1303 is the first mention of the parish Altensteig in a record of the monastery Allerheiligen."

BROSS FAMILY ORIGINS

I start this story with a look at the ancient past and medieval history of the collective people who are our ancestors. I have gathered together this history to paint their picture and to give us an impression on who our more ancient ancestors were and how they lived with the backdrop of the events of their times.

The Bross family originated in the legendary Black Forest. In German it is called “Schwarzwald“. Around the first century the Romans had called it the “Hercynian Wood“. The Bross family are descendents of the Allemanni who were one of the Germanic tribes who had migrated into the Black Forest area which is east of the Rhine River and north of the Danube River. "This region was first known by the Romans as Alemannia because at the time its settlers were of the Germanic tribe Alemans (or Allemanni). When the Romans began to conquer the area, it was incorporated as part of Agri Decumates. It later received its name from later German migrants, the Suevi, who became amalgamated with the Allemanni in the 5^th century AD. These Suevi are probably actually best thought of as a collective group of a number of German tribes (including the Marcomanni and Lombards), which are mentioned in the 1st century BC by Gaius Julius Caesar as dwelling east of the Rhine River. The Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (1st century AD) described them as inhabiting all of central Germany. One group of Suevi, allied with the Vandals and the Alans, swept down on the Iberian Peninsula in AD 407, conquered it from the Hispano-Romans living there, and apportioned out the territory. As a result, by 411 the Suevi were established in present-day northern Portugal and Galicia, and by 452, in Castile. They adopted Catholic Christianity and ruled until 469 when they were subjugated by the Visigoths, who had been co-opted by the rulers at Rome. The Suevi, and Alemanni, who remained in Germany are the ancestors of the medieval Swabians. The name is also spelled Suebi. As time progressed, this area became known as Swabia and later known as the principality of Wuerttemberg. Swabia [sway'-bee-uh] (German Schwaben, Latin Suevia) was named after the Suevi which was one of the names for the Alemanni, the Germanic tribes which occupied the area in the 3rd century. Swabia or Suabia (Schwaben) was a medieval duchy in southwest Germany. The area occupied by the Alemanni included much of what is now Alsace, Baden, western Bavaria, Württemberg, and much of Switzerland."

"The Alemands did not live in the stone houses of the Romans, but rather used the already prepared sites to enlarge or build their own houses of clay and wood. In the middle of the 5th century the Alemands built more and more cemeteries near their settlements. They used them for several generations, and from that one can see the permanence of their settlements. Since they buried their dead in rows, the places are also known as row-grave cemeteries. They provided an explanation of expansion and density of occupation by the Alemands. Of the settlement sites themselves, no remains are still available. The settlement area of the Alemands around 450 A.D. reached from the Upper Rhine area (north of Basel) up to the Iller [river] in the east, and from High Rhine area (Schaffhausen to Basel) up to the Main [river] in the north. In the north, they came into contact with the Franks, another Germanic tribal group. The Franks had attained sovereignty in the Mid- and Lower Rhine, and also in the west had taken up the legacy of Roman power."

"The Suevi (Sueben or Swabians) belonged to the tribe of the Alemands, reshaped in the 3rd century. From the 9th century on, in place of the area designation "Alemania," came the name "Schwaben" (Swabia). Our French neighbors to this day call Germans "Allemands."

"Around 500, Alemannia came under the control of the waxing Frankish Empire. But its ruling house, the Merovingians, were not strong and by 689 Swabia was virtually independent. It was brought back under control in the 730's and 740's by Charles Martel, founder of the Carolingian Dynasty, who deposed the hereditary dukes of Swabia and subdivided it to be ruled by counts reporting directly to him. This situation continued until the 9th century and the dissolution of the Empire under the grandsons of Charlemagne. Between 900-11, largely because the central royal authority failed to stem the tide of invading Magyars (Hungarians) and Normans, the Alemannians were able to become an independent "stem-duchy", organized, like those of the Bavarii, Franks, Saxons and Thuringii, around the people of an historic tribe."

"As in all the duchies, the dukes were those who proved they could meet the military demands of those anarchic times. The first duke's family were known by the sobriquet dux Raetianorum, i.e. defenders of the Alpine passes of Switzerland, reflecting their role as military leaders and organizers. During this period, Swabia controlled not only parts of Switzerland, but lands west of the Rhine River, i.e. including the Alsace."

"Alemannia's forces raised its commander, Erchanger, to the dukedom in 915, after his forces defeated the German king Conrad I. When Erchanger was defeated and executed in 917, he was replaced by Burchard II, who had strong enough backing to actually have made a play for the monarchy. Instead, he decided to accept the choice of Henry I of Saxony made by the dying King Conrad I."

"In 919, Burchard was faced with the challenge of invasion by Rudolf I, king of Burgundy. Alemannia successfully repulsed the invaders and the peace that followed was sealed by the marriage of Rudolf and Burchard's daughter. The two formed an alliance and began expeditions to conquest in Italy about 922. When four years later Burchard died during one of them, his ally Rudolf pressed his claim to Alemannia through marriage. However, Henry was unwilling to see Alemannia alienated from the kingdom and instead appointed as duke, Hermann, cousin of Eberhard who hailed from Franconia. Hermann showed his gratitude in 919 by saving the fortunes of the king during the Saxon Revolt. But his installation had inaugurated a regular trend -- between 926 and 1080, only one duke was Alemannic, all the rest were either Franks or Saxons. Meanwhile, to assuage Rudolf's ambitions, the town of Basel was severed from Swabia and given to Burgundy. In gratitude, Rudolf presented Henry with an artifact recovered from Italy -- the Holy Lance, an important symbol of the inheritance of Constantine."

"But Swabia, as it now began to be called, still managed to be sovereign enough to pursue its own foreign policy. Liudolf became duke in 949, succeeding Hermann by marrying his daughter. In 951, Liudolf crossed the Alps, ostensibly to champion Adelaide of Burgundy, but in reality to take advantage of Italian weakness to expand his realm. He was pre-empted in this when the king, Otto I, himself invaded the region, secured the crown of Lombardy and married Adelaide. The duke, who was Otto's son, transformed his disappointment into first a conspiracy in 952 and in 953 an open revolt which could not be quashed until 955. Only following this did Otto feel strong and secure enough to go to Rome and become the first German king to be crowned by the pope as a nominal emperor."

"Another of the Burchards took over in 954. After Burchard died, Otto II appointed Liudolf's son Otto to succeed him."

"Swabia showed its strength yet again in 1027 when Duke Ernst of Swabia revolted against Conrad III. The king countered by allying with the counts in Swabia and thus quickly ended the episode. By 1039, Swabia was one of four duchies in the king's hands."

"From 1077-1080, Germany was roiled by the Investiture Contest, a competition between king and pope, which left local lords unchecked and free to engage in a massive land and property grab, especially regarding monasteries. The duke of Swabia, Rudolf, was even elected the anti-king during this time, but never gained widespread acceptance."

"Following the Contest, true feudalism sprang up in the form of castle building all over Swabia and the rest of Germany. One of the most prominent was its duke, Frederick of Staufen, or Hohenstaufen. The Hohenstaufen family were very powerful and provided Swabia with its most illustrious dukes. Thus when King Henry IV was seeking supporters during the civil wars, Duke Frederick I was a natural choice to marry his daughter. After the failure of Henry's dynastic line in 1138 and the reign of two interim rulers, a descendant, Duke Frederick III, actually vaulted to the kingship, which the family held until 1250. Meanwhile, Frederick, now King Friedrich I Barbarossa, continued to build up Swabia to strengthen his position against the still-powerful dukes such as Henry the Lion, a practice which brought him into some conflict with the Bertolds."

"After the Staufens, the Bertolds were the most prominent family of castle builders in Swabia. This family drew their early power and tax base from their control of monasteries, which they founded in the hitherto-uninhabited Black Forest. Once developed by monks, it began to be colonized and towns laid out, including Freiburg-im-Breisgau, founded by Conrad Bertold in 1120. By then, the castle had become so important that their owners began to name themselves after them, so it is as Conrad von Zähringen that Conrad appears in the records."

"But as the castles went up, the duchies went down under this wave of particularism. After the Hohenstaufens fell out of power, Swabia was given to King Conrad III's son. After his death, it returned to the crown and was put in control of ministeriales, a non-noble class of civil servants. The idea was that such men would be more tractable and less likely to alienate the fief from the crown out of their own greed. It is perhaps a recognition of the lesser power of the ministeriales that at the same time, the Zähringen family was also restricted in 1169 in terms of their activities in Burgundy. When the Hohenstaufen line entirely failed in 1268, it signaled the breakup of Swabia as a political unit as various portions were snapped up by families which were to play important roles in Germany's future: Zähringen, Habsburg and Hohenzollern."

"Eventually, the margraves of Baden, located along the Rhine River and those of Württemberg, centered at Stuttgart (also Stuegart, Stuggart, Stuhgart, a Swabian word meaning "stuten garten" or Mare's Corral) became dominant. The idea of Swabia was not lost, however, and in 1376, 14 cities, for their own protection, organized themselves into the Swabian League of Cities. The League grew to eventually include over 32 cities from Basle in the west to Regensburg in the east, from Constance in the south to Nuremburg in the North. In 1488, a new grouping, now simply styled "Swabian League" was formed by these cities, the larger principalities and even individual knights, for the purpose of maintaining internal stability. When in the 16th century, the Holy Roman Empire began to organize around the Kreis, literally, "circle", these states called themselves the Swabian Kreis."

"The Kreis, more properly the Reichskreis or Imperial Circle, was an area similar to an English county within the larger whole. (The term originally referred to a lined-off place were a battle was to take place. Within such a ring, different rules applied as compared with the outside of the ring.) The Kreis designated the Swabian Kreis comprised all of the inheritor Swabian states."

"In the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as areas of eastern Europe were conquered from the Ottoman Turks, many from Swabia migrated to areas in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. The Danube River, or Donau, was the most frequently used means of transportation for the trek and this group came to be known as the Donauschwaben."

"Today, the term Swabia is still sometimes used to refer to the areas once encompassed by the medieval duchy. The modern center is more thought to lie at Stuttgart and here and there one can still often hear spoken the Swabian dialect, Schwäbisch (Schwobisch) with its customary friendly greeting of "Grüss Gott"."

The Bross family spoke the Schwaebisch German dialect from many centuries ago to their days in Bessarabia. "It is characterized by its quick, slangy cadence and foreshortening of a large number of the words in the vocabulary. It is perhaps the dialect that changed the least during kinship migrations. People who spoke Schwaebisch originated in the Black Forest area, mostly southern and central Wuerttemberg in southwest Germany. This land was called Swabia to describe the ancient tribal region."

http://www.schwaebisch-englisch.de/

"In much of Europe, the Protestant churches or parishes began keeping vital statistics during the mid-1500s; the Catholics somewhat later. Prior to this time, religious and temporal authorities did not bother keeping these kind of records. Only the nobility did, for they needed to prove ancestry."

“The Bross family name is listed in the parish records back to 1540.Very little is known about the lifestyle of the Bross family from 1540 thru to the 1780’s other than through research. The Bross family lived on the edge of what was then civilization for centuries mainly in the two villages of Egenhausen and Spielberg which are 50 kilometres southwest of Stuttgart, just south of the city of Altensteig. These two villages are about 500 metres apart. These villages are located on a small flat plateau on the top of the mountains of the Black Forest. On the way up a winding road a traveller passes the village of Altensteig which has a castle church at the top of the north end of the city on a cliff. This was a nobleman, duke or archduke’s place of residence in the 15^th, 16^th and 17^th centuries and his authority stretched another 5 to 6 kilometres to the small villages of Spielberg, Egenhausen and Groembach. This area is now on a fairly level cleared plain roughly 5 kilometres from east to west and 2 to 3 kilometres north to south. Here is mostly grown corn, potatoes, sunflowers and various grains. The two villages of Spielberg and Egenhausen each have one church which are Lutheran Evangelical. These churches are approximately 800 years old.” (Heath, Lawrence Alan and Heath, Beverly Ann
Gerlach, Our Family Legacy: Heath, Hill, Gerlach, Mogck. Delta, British
Columbia, 1992)

The Black Forest

"The Black Forest consists of small rolling mountains covered in pine trees. On the sides of hills are carved out farms that look like manicured estates. The farm houses are not overly large, but all are two stories high, sometimes with a large storage barn attached. The windows have small flower boxes on the balconies, where red geraniums are massively planted which hang over the boxes and/or banisters. The walls are white stucco with dark brown wood trim. In front of the houses are large gardens that look like small parks." (Heath, Lawrence Alan and Heath, Beverly Ann
Gerlach, Our Family Legacy: Heath, Hill, Gerlach, Mogck. Delta, British
Columbia, 1992)

"In the small valleys are small Dorfs (villages), sometimes with a small stream running through the wooded areas. There are walking paths leading from the Dorf into the woods where, humped exquisitely, wooden bridges cross the creek. There would be between ten to thirty farmers with two story homes, with the barns attached to the back of the houses. There are no stores or businesses at all, but usually a small church was at the end of the street. These farmers live together but their fields are away, out in the hilly countryside. These Dorfs have been here for centuries, and when rebuilding took place, the identical buildings were rebuilt." (Heath, Lawrence Alan and Heath, Beverly Ann
Gerlach, Our Family Legacy: Heath, Hill, Gerlach, Mogck. Delta, British
Columbia, 1992)