♂Franciscus Jacobus Basler

Franciscus Jacobus Basler (1680–1748) was a native of Rheinweiler, a village on the Upper Rhine in Baden, Germany, who lost his father at about three, married Catharina Schultz in 1710 and had four sons with her, the youngest two of them twins. He was the fifth great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through his son Simon Basler (1711–1778).

Early life

Franciscus Jacobus was born at Rheinweiler in 1680 and was probably baptized at Bamlach on 26 May that year, the son of Beatus Basler (1641–1683) and Apollonia Bürlin (1652–1717). Rheinweiler belonged to the parish of Bamlach, the neighboring village, and its baptisms, marriages and burials were entered in the Bamlach church book. He was the third of his parents’ four children, and he carried the name of an elder brother, baptized in 1672, who had died before he was born.

His father is said to have been the village’s Vogt^W, or bailiff, and died in 1683, when Franciscus Jacobus was about three. His mother married again, to Joannes Jacobus Carlin, had four more children with him from 1684 onwards, and lived until 1717.

Marriage and family

Franciscus Jacobus Basler and Catharina Schultz married at Rheinweiler in November 1710, when he was thirty. Their first son, Simon, was born the next year and baptized at Bamlach on 27 October 1711. Joannes Melchior followed on 6 January 1717, and the twins Franciscus Jacobus and Benedictus were baptized together on 6 July 1721. Their father died at Rheinweiler in 1748 and Catharina, his widow, in 1749; they were most likely buried at Bamlach on 16 December 1748 and 22 February 1749, a little over two months apart.

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 writes his name Franciscus Jacobus Bassler, gives his birth at Rheinweiler in 1680 and his death there in 1748, and names his parents as Beatus Bassler, who died at Rheinweiler in 1683, and Apollonia Bürlin (1652–1717). It lists their four children: an elder Franciscus Jacobus, born in 1672 and dead before 1680, Maria Eva in 1675, Franciscus Jacobus in 1680 and Beatus Nicolaus in 1682. It gives Beatus’s occupation as Vogt, and notes that the church book styles him praefectus, the Latin form of the title, at the baptisms of his two youngest children. It gives Apollonia’s second marriage, to Joannes Jacobus Carlin, with four children from Anastasia in 1684 to Joannes in 1698. It gives the marriage of Franciscus Jacobus and Catharina Schultz at Rheinweiler in 1710, calls her a widow at her death in 1749, and lists their four sons.

The church-book index

FamilySearch’s index of the Bamlach church book, in the Freiburg Catholic Church Records collection, gives his baptism on 26 May 1680 as Franciscus Jacobus Basler, son of Beatus Basler and Apollonia Büel, the parents the family book gives; the register page itself is not available. The same index holds the baptism of the elder Franciscus Jacobus on 28 July 1672, written as the son of Beaty Basler and Apolonia Büol. It also holds the baptisms of the four sons of Franciscus Jacobus and Catharina, Simon on 27 October 1711, Joan Melchior on 6 January 1717, and Franciscus Jacobus and Benedictus on 6 July 1721, and no other child of the couple. Simon’s entry names his parents as Franz Jacobus Bassler and Catharina Schultz.

The marriage

The marriage is given here at Rheinweiler, the place the family book names, in November 1710. The index of the Bamlach church book writes the couple Jo Jacobus Bassler and Catharina Schultz and gives the month but no day. A second index of the same entry, in the collection Germany, Marriages, 1558–1929, gives the groom’s birthplace as Bamlach and the bride’s as Rheinweiler. The family book places his birth at Rheinweiler, the place kept here; Bamlach was where he was baptized. Neither index names the couple’s parents.

His burial

The burial of a Jacobus Bassler at Bamlach on 16 December 1748 is known from FamilySearch’s index of the Bamlach church book, in the year the family book gives for his death; the index gives no age, wife or parents. He is the only grown man of the Basler family buried in the Bamlach register between 1740 and 1755, the family book has no other Jacobus Bassler who died in 1748, and the burial of Catharina Schultz on 22 February 1749 is indexed from the same page of the register, so the entry is taken to be his. The index calls him Jacobus, as the index of the 1710 marriage does.