Friday, 25 November 2005 - 2:44 AM EST

Hello,

I have many ancestors in Le Ban de la Roche.

I have written "virtual books" about it (in french). They can be reas free at this adress :

http://badonpierre.free.fr/salmpierre/mfrancois.html

I put in them everything I know : families, legends, history, mentalities, etc ....

The titles :

Genealogie des habitants du Ban de la Roche et de leurs Legendes (about le Ban de la Roche)

Magique Pays de Salm (about the small twin catholic village)

Les voyegeurs de la Princess Augusta (about Princess Augusta specifically)

I hope you will take pleasure in readin it

Have a good day

Monique

Wednesday, 28 December 2005 - 5:03 AM EST

Hello,

As you all know, there is a little mystery about the presence of Jacob Christman on the Princess Augusta. The ship lists register a Jacob Christman aged 25, which nobody can find on any French parish register.

And they omit "our" Jacob Christman, aged 16 in 1736.

My theory is that there is only one Jacob Christman, that aged 16, who travelled with his mother and his stepfather Pierre Brullhardt.

In my opinion, he could have lied on his age to seem older that he was.

There was an interest in such a lie.

It was financially interesting to seem to be independant.

Otherwise, if a passenger died before the first half of the journey, his family has to pay for his passage.

Wednesday, 28 December 2005 - 5:04 AM EST

Hello,

As you all know, there is a little mystery about the presence of Jacob Christman on the Princess Augusta. The ship lists register a Jacob Christman aged 25, which nobody can find on any French parish register.

And they omit "our" Jacob Christman, aged 16 in 1736.

My theory is that there is only one Jacob Christman, that aged 16, who travelled with his mother and his stepfather Pierre Brullhardt.

In my opinion, he could have lied on his age to seem older that he was.

There was an interest in such a lie.

It was financially interesting to seem to be independant.

Otherwise, if a passenger died before the first half of the journey, his family has to pay for his passage.

Thursday, 29 December 2005 - 12:25 AM EST

Monique! Once again, you are always keen in logic. You make perfect sense. I tell you, I have looked up and down in the Ban de la Roche registries for a 25 year old Jacob Christman but could only find the mention of the one who was a step son to Pierre Brillhardt and son of Odille Verly. I thought that perhaps this branch of Christmans might have come from across the river when the 30 Years War pushed the residents out to Barr. So I wondered if some of the families who remained in Barr then moved north to Wurttemberg where some Christmans are said to have emigrated... there is another group of genealogists in America who claim this Jacob Christman, age 25, as their own and have dismissed our 16 year old Jacob. It is quite possible that the person who read the age off the manifest misread 1 for 2 and 6 for 5. The French script for a 1 often to the Western eye looks like a 2 or a big 7 (the reason I imagine why there is a hyphen line through the number 1 to differentiate between a 1 and 7) and the French handwritten 5 often looks like a 6 to the western eye. Perhaps the same researcher who printed into one book that the Christmans were from Rodan, Steintal also made the entry of this age. Actually, it's probably not possible for lightning to strike twice, but when Rotau was erroneously spelled as Rodan, for a hundred plus years, American geneaologists kept reprinting the same mistake! But when by some ghostly direction I found myself ACCIDENTALLY scrolling through Ban de la Roche registries (for no known reason I can think of on my own) and came across the Christman name, not knowing what it was about, on a hunch, I made print outs of all the pages and decided that when I had time to attempt a translation, I would try... that attempt sat on a shelf for a year but when I finally began to sift through the Patois, there it came to me like a grand ghost-- Jacob Christman, born in 1720 in Wildersbach. Thereafter by some odd ability, I could read and understand that what I had photocopied long ago was an entire registry of family history belonging to these lost Christmans no one in America could connect to because for a hundred years we were all looking for a Rodan. There never was a Rodan, it was always Rotau, and the wrong lead occurred because of a misreading of the handwriting... thus yes, YES YES, it could very well be that the Jacob Christman age 16 in 1736 was read to be 25 because of a writing error or more probable-- a reading error...

But very interesting on the deception of the age in order to spare the family of paying for passage should death occur along the way... we know it happened for Sebastian Caquelin.

Thursday, 29 December 2005 - 12:27 AM EST

And it really is a splendid and well developed site, too. Please everyone, please, you MUST visit Monique's fabulous sit on the Ban Community. Once again, that address is:

http://badonpierre.free.fr/salmpierre/mfrancois.html

Tuesday, 23 November 2010 - 11:20 PM EST

To Louise Chrisman

I  keep seeing your name pop up everywhere I go on my reasearch into the Chrisman clan. I was curious if you have been able to find out what daily like might have been like for our Christman ancestors back in Ban de la Roche. Like what did they do? Were they farmers? Miners?

I'd love to have further discussions with you. 

omgbear@rocketmail.com

-Amber

Jacob Christmann (the Moravian) is my g.g.g.g.g.g.g.g.g.grandfather.