♀Anne Marguerite Pfeiffer

Anne Marguerite Pfeiffer (born 12 March 1791) was a farrier’s daughter from Pfaffenhoffen, in Alsace, who married a young farmer of Nehwiller-près-Woerth in 1816 and gave birth to a daughter eighteen days after the wedding. She was the third great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006).

Early life

She was born on 12 March 1791 at Pfaffenhoffen, in northern Alsace, the daughter of Jean Jacques Pfeiffer, a farrier, and Anne Catherine Conrad. She was still living in Pfaffenhoffen, unmarried and of full age, in the summer of 1816.

Marriage and family

On 11 July 1816, at Nehwiller-près-Woerth, Jean Jacques Burckhardt, a laboureur aged 22, married Anne Marguerite Pfeiffer, aged 25, of Pfaffenhoffen. He had been born at Niederbronn-les-Bains, the son of Jean Jacques Burckhardt, a laboureur at Nehwiller, and Catherine Elisabeth Baehr. Both fathers were present and gave their consent, and the banns^W were published at Nehwiller and at Pfaffenhoffen.

A daughter, Anne Catherine, was born at Nehwiller on 29 July 1816, eighteen days after the wedding, and her husband declared the birth, naming her as his wife, Anne Marguerite née Pfeiffer. Another daughter, Catherine Elisabeth, was born there on the evening of 18 January 1823, her father’s twenty-ninth birthday.

America

The family probably emigrated to America about 1830 and settled near Millerstown, now Millersville, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Both parents are said to have died at Lancaster about 1831, when Anne Catherine was about fifteen and Elizabeth about eight. Elizabeth married John F. Schneck (1812–1857) at Lancaster on 26 January 1843 and spent her adult life in Posey County, Indiana. Through Elizabeth and her son Jacob Schneck (1843–1906), the line probably runs down to Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006).

Notes

Elizabeth Burkhart

The link between this couple and Elizabeth Burkhart of Lancaster and Posey County rests on agreement between records, not on a record that states it. The Nehwiller birth act of 19 January 1823 (no. 4) records Catherine Elisabeth, born the evening before to Jacques Burckhardt and Marguerite née Pfeiffer. Elizabeth’s gravestone gives her birthday as 18 January, though in the year 1821; an 1883 county history and a family chart compiled in 1994 give 1823, and the chart’s full date, 18 January 1823, is the day of the act. The chart names her parents as Jacob Burkhardt and Margaretta Peipher.

Emigration and death

The 1883 county history, in a sketch of Elizabeth’s son Jacob Schneck, says she “was only seven years of age when her parents emigrated to America, and settled near Millerstown”, which the 1994 family chart places in Lancaster County. The 1994 family chart says that Jacob Burkhardt and Margaretta Peipher both died about 1831 at Lancaster; no record of either death is known. The ten-year lists of deaths at Nehwiller for 1823–1832 show no death of Anne Marguerite, of her husband or of Catherine Elisabeth.

The 1994 chart’s dates

The chart gives Margaretta Peipher’s birth as 1797 at “Neuville (?)”, Alsace, and her husband’s as 1793. The 1816 marriage act gives 12 March 1791 at Pfaffenhoffen for her and 18 January 1794 at Niederbronn for him; the act’s dates are used here.

Other children

The ten-year lists of births at Nehwiller (tables décennales) show further Burckhardt births between 1814 and 1829, but at least two Burckhardt households lived in the village, and each child’s birth act would show which were this couple’s. A FamilySearch tree gives the couple four more children: Anne Marguerite (1818), Jacques (1820), Marguerite (1825) and Madeleine (1828); the death list records an Anne Marguerite Burckhard who died on 27 December 1818.

Anne Catherine

A FamilySearch tree gives Anna Catherine Burkhart, wife of David Emmanuel Rhein, a birth on 30 June 1816 at Nehwiller; the Nehwiller birth act gives 29 July 1816, used here. The same tree gives her marriage at Lancaster in September 1835 and her death on 14 November 1899 at Carmi, White County, Illinois.