Today we celebrate a birthday – that of my six-times-great-grandmother, Maria Hassler. She was born on 19 May 1718 in Schwand, Bavaria. She was the daughter of Stephan and Maria (Roser) Hassler, both of whom were also born in Schwand. She married Mathias Bollschweiler, and the couple had a daughter, Catharina, born 28 November 1748 in Bürchau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Catharina would marry Johann George Demler; their son, Johannes Demler, had a son, Johan Demler, and that Johan was the father of Mary Demler, who married Samuel Slagel and gave birth to my great-grandmother Emma Alice Slagel.
Image from Wikipedia
The information I have on Maria in my database is limited, showing just the one child and going back only to her parents’ generation. My records show she died on 2 June 1791, only 11 days after her husband’s death. I thought that was going to be all I had to share on Maria in this post, but after taking a quick look on FamilySearch this evening to find an image to include here and coming up with the birth record below, I idly clicked on a related FamilySearch link…and found a family tree for Maria going back another six generations. I have no idea yet how reliable this trove of new information may be and will need to conduct further investigation to confirm its accuracy, so I’m tamping down on my excitement…for now.
“Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS43-69QC-5?cc=3015626 : 22 February 2019), Records extracted and images digitized by Ancestry.com. German Lutheran Collection, various parishes, Germany.