Re: Warembourg family history
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In reply to:
Warembourg family history
7/08/00
Dear Kathleen,
I have nothing about your ancestor directly but I might have some information about the coming from of that family in Germany and earlier from France. I just posted most of this letter to another board but it might be interesting for you as well.
I looked into the church book of the French reformed church of Battin, Uckermark, Prussia starting around 1688 and found the name VAREMBOURG mentioned quite often, I think that is as close to Warembourg as you can get, the oldest members of that tribe were (from death entries):
1. Adrien VAREMBOURG, * about 1647 in Laventie, L’Alloeu oo Catherine DE LA CROIX. + 22 March 1699, Battin, Uckermark, age 52 years.
2. Jehan VAREMBOURG, * about 1661 in Gorgue, L’Alloeu oo ?, + 15 Apr.1716 1707 in Woddow, Battin, Uckermark, age 55 years.
Now let me tell you something about the historic and geographical background:
Battin is a small village about 20 miles to my main searching point Strasburg, Uckermark, near the Polish border.
A French colony had been formed there as in Strasburg, Uckermark. And most of the families were Walloons as in Strasburg, Uckermark. Many of my French linesstarting with my greatgrandmother Hermine Fouquet, born 1842 in Strasburg, Uckermark end in the same few villages of an area called L’Alloeu (meaning “free earth”) in France not far from the city of Lille, west of the city of Calais (in fact 12 names!). Now I learned that Laventie was the capital of that area and other villages were Fleurbaix, Sailly-sur-la-Lys and La Gorgue.
I sent an email to the Mairie of Laventie, asking for information, but have no answer yet. (The bad news is that Laventie got almost 100% destroyed during WW1 )
Most of the known families left France around 1650 because of their reformed religion (Calvinists) but some as late as 1680. They settled for more than one generation in the Palatinate (KURPFALZ those days) around the area of Mannheim (Frankenthal) and Landau (Steinweiler, Minfeld, Barbelroth). But the french king Ludwig the 14th tried to conquer the Palatinate after 1685 so they fled first to Hessen and after a few years moved on to the Uckermark.
The Prussian Kurfuerst Friedrich Wilhem, called “der grosse Kurfuerst”, had invited them and granted them land and financial help to set up a business or for farming. He needed people because his land was devasted by the 30 years war, plague and another war agains Sweden. In some areas as the Uckermark only ten percent of the population had survived. So he had plenty of empty houses and farms to give to the newcomers. The French colonist got their own churches, schools and even own law with own judges, they had the right to keep their French language, customs and of course religion. These separate French colonies existed for over one century. The families kept to each other and married within each other. So they are easy to trace.
Some members of the families even stayed in the Palatinate area or returned to that area after the French wars were over. So I have a lot of FOUQUET descendants around Mannheim even today.
I hope all this information will give you something new to think about.
Ina Friling from Germany
More Replies:
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Re: Warembourg family history
Eleanor Edmondson 2/24/04
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Re: Warembourg family history
11/14/01