♀Apollonia Bürlin

Apollonia Bürlin (1652–1717) was a native of Bamlach, a village on the Upper Rhine in Baden, Germany, who married twice, first a widower and then a man ten years younger than herself, and had four children by each husband. She was an ancestor of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014) by two separate lines of descent, one through a child of each marriage: her sixth great-grandmother through her son Franciscus Jacobus Basler (1680–1748), and her sixth great-grandmother again through her daughter Anastasia Carlin (1684–1758).

Early life

Apollonia was born at Bamlach in 1652 and was probably baptized there on 23 April that year, the daughter of Romanus Bürlin and Maria Fräulin, and the fourth of their seven children. Her father is said to have been the Vogt^W, or headman, of Bamlach. Her mother died in 1675 and her father in 1688.

First marriage

On 8 November 1671, at nineteen, Apollonia married Beatus Basler (1641–1683) at Bamlach. He was a widower; his first wife, Anna Maria Wieland, had died that year. Their first child, Franciscus Jacobus, was baptized at Bamlach on 28 July 1672 and died young. Maria Eva followed in 1675, a second Franciscus Jacobus, born at Rheinweiler, in 1680, and Beatus Nicolaus in 1682. Like her father, Beatus is said to have served as Vogt. He died at Rheinweiler, the neighboring village, in 1683 and was in all likelihood buried at Bamlach on 20 May, leaving Apollonia a widow of thirty-one.

Second marriage

Joannes Jacobus Carlin and Apollonia Bürlin married at Bamlach on 16 February 1684, when he was twenty-two and she thirty-one. Their daughter Anastasia was baptized at Bamlach on 5 November 1684, and Joannes Adamus followed in 1688, Catharina in 1693 and Joannes in 1698, when Apollonia was forty-five. All four were born at Rheinweiler, which belonged to the parish of Bamlach; its baptisms, marriages and burials were entered in the Bamlach church book.

Apollonia died at Rheinweiler in 1717 and was most likely buried at Bamlach on 27 February; Joannes Jacobus died there the same year, at fifty-five, a widower at his own burial, so he outlived her by less than a year.

Lines of descent

Both lines begin with children who married in November 1710. The first runs through Franciscus Jacobus Basler, who married Catharina Schultz at Rheinweiler that month; their son Simon Basler (1711–1778) was the grandfather of Louis Bosler (about 1787–1831). The second runs through Anastasia Carlin, who married Joannes Jacobus Spony the same month; their son Johann Jakob Spony (1716–1783) was the grandfather of Magdalena Zähringer (born about 1790). The two lines meet again in Louis Oliver Bosler (1825–1909), the son of Louis Bosler and Magdalena Zähringer: his father was Apollonia’s great-great-grandson through her first marriage, and his mother her great-great-granddaughter through her second.

Notes

Sources of the dates

The village family book^W is Felix Pöschl and Ingrid Kopf, Ortssippenbuch Bamlach-Rheinweiler 1630–1810 (Basel, 2006), online at online-ofb.de/bamlach, a compiled reconstitution of the two villages’ families from the parish registers. It gives years rather than full dates. It gives her birth at Bamlach in 1652 and her death at Rheinweiler in 1717, and writes the surname also as Büelin, Birlin and Burlin. It names her parents as Romanus Bürlin, Vogt, styled praefectus at his burial, who died at Bamlach in 1688, and Maria Fräulin, who died there in 1675, and lists their seven children, from Maria in 1646 to a second Maria in 1658. It gives her first marriage, to Beatus Bassler, at Bamlach in 1671, calls him a widower (“viduus”) at that marriage, gives his occupation as Vogt and his death at Rheinweiler in 1683, and notes that the church book styles him praefectus, the Latin form of the title, at the baptisms of the two youngest of their four children. It gives her second marriage, to Joannes Jacobus Carlin, a widower (“Witwer”) at his burial in 1717, and lists their four children, from Anastasia in 1684 to Joannes in 1698.

Her baptism and her name

FamilySearch’s index of the Bamlach church book, in the Freiburg Catholic Church Records collection, gives the baptism on 23 April 1652 of a child written Apollonia Büelis, daughter of Romanus Büelis and Maria Freyl. The index is the source for the day; the register page itself is not available. The family’s surname is indexed a different way on almost every entry, as Büelis, Büel, Würle, Birl, Bürl or Buel, and the index holds baptisms matching the seven children the family book lists, and no other child of Romanus and Maria. Apollonia herself is written Apolonia Büöl at her first marriage, Apollonia Buerler and Apollonia Bürler in the two indexes of her second, Büol, Bul, Büel, Büchl and Büehl at her children’s baptisms, and Bühl at her burial. The spelling Bürlin is the family book’s.

The first marriage

The same index gives the marriage of Beatus Basler and Apolonia Büöl on 8 November 1671, in the year and place the family book gives. Beatus’s first marriage, to Anna Maria Wieland on 17 July 1667, is in the index as well, with her name written Anna Maria Winlaüch; the family book gives her death in 1671. The index holds the baptisms of the four children of Beatus and Apollonia that the family book lists: Franciscus Jacobus on 28 July 1672, whom the family book marks as dead before 1680, Maria Eva on 13 June 1675, with the father written Laurentus, Franciscus Jacobus on 26 May 1680 and Beatus Nicolaus on 16 March 1682. A burial at Bamlach on 20 May 1683 is indexed under the name Beatus Kasler, a misreading of the surname; it gives no age or wife, but it falls in the year the family book gives for his death, and the other men named Beatus Bassler in the register were buried in 1653, 1660 and 1706.

The second marriage

Two FamilySearch indexes of the Bamlach register give the marriage on 16 February 1684: the collection Germany, Marriages, 1558–1929 writes the couple Jacobus Carlin and Apollonia Buerler, and the Freiburg Catholic Church Records index writes them Jo Jacobus Carl and Apollonia Bürler. The Freiburg index holds the baptisms of the four children the family book lists, and no other child of the couple: Anastasia on 5 November 1684, Adamus on 14 May 1688, Catharina on 4 October 1693 and Joannes on 24 January 1698.

Her burial

The burial of an Apollonia Bühl at Bamlach on 27 February 1717 is in FamilySearch’s index of the Bamlach church book, in the year the family book gives for her death; the entry gives no age and names no husband. Her niece Apollonia, a daughter of her brother Jacobus, baptized in 1674, could in principle own it, but the index also holds the marriage of an Apollonia Buel to Joes Henricus Ebelhard and the baptism in 1710 of a child of Apollonia Bichl and Martinus Gilg, which suggest the niece had married and taken another surname by then. The entry is therefore most likely Apollonia’s own, and her husband’s being a widower at his burial later that year fits it.