♂Josephus Dossenbach

Josephus Dossenbach (1665–1722) was a native of Rheinweiler, a village on the Upper Rhine in Baden, Germany, who married Anna Maria Carlin there in 1693 and had seven children with her over the next twenty-two years. He was an ancestor of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014) by two separate lines of descent: her fifth great-grandfather through his daughter Maria Eva Dossenbach (1715–1785), and her sixth great-grandfather as well, through his son Ursus Dossenbach (1696–1781).

Early life

Josephus was born at Rheinweiler in 1665 and was probably baptized at Bamlach on 22 March that year, the son of Sigismundus Dossenbach and Margaretha Scherer, who had married in 1659. 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 fifth of his parents’ ten children. His father died in 1680, when Josephus was fifteen, and his mother lived on until 1708.

Marriage and family

Josephus Dossenbach and Anna Maria Carlin married at Rheinweiler on 25 January 1693. Their first child, Josephus, was baptized at Bamlach on 14 October 1693, and five more followed between 1696 and 1707: Ursus, Catharina, Joannes Sebastianus, Sigismundus, who bore his paternal grandfather’s name, and Joannes Jacobus. The seventh and last, Maria Eva, was baptized on 14 January 1715, more than seven years after the next youngest. Catharina died in 1710, when she was eleven or twelve.

Death

Josephus Dossenbach died at Rheinweiler in 1722, at fifty-six, and was presumably buried at Bamlach on 24 February that year. His youngest child, Maria Eva, was seven. Anna Maria outlived him by twenty-two years and died at Rheinweiler in 1744, still a widow.

Lines of descent

Both lines begin with children of this marriage. The first runs through Maria Eva, who married Simon Basler at Rheinweiler in 1734; their youngest child, Fidel Basler (1759–1808), was the father of Louis Bosler (1787–1831). The second runs through Ursus, who married Anna Maria Fräulin at Bamlach in 1723, and most likely through their daughter Maria Ursula Dossenbach (died 1807), the wife of Christian Zehringer, and her son Christian Zehringer, the father of Magdalena Zähringer (born about 1790). The two lines meet again in Louis Oliver Bosler (1825–1909), whose father and mother, Louis Bosler and Magdalena Zähringer, were both descendants of Josephus and Anna Maria.

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 Josephus Dosenbach, gives his birth at Rheinweiler in 1665 and his death there in 1722, and names his parents as Sigismundus Dosenbach, who died at Rheinweiler in 1680, and Margaretha Scherer, who died there in 1708; they married at Rheinweiler in 1659 and had ten children, from Joannes in 1659 to Catharina in 1674. It gives his marriage to Anna Maria Carlin in 1693 and lists their seven children, from Josephus in 1693 to Maria Eva in 1715, with Catharina’s death in 1710.

The church-book index

FamilySearch’s index of the Bamlach church book, in the Freiburg Catholic Church Records collection, gives his baptism on 22 March 1665 as Josephus Dossenbach, with the parents written Ismudus Dossenbach and Margaretha Schewrig, most likely misreadings of Sigismundus and Scherer; the register page itself is not available. The index holds no other baptism of a Josephus Dossenbach between 1655 and 1680, and the other Dossenbach fathers who had children baptized between 1641 and 1674 had wives of other names. The same index holds the baptisms of his nine brothers and sisters, his parents’ marriage on 28 April 1659, his father’s burial on 5 August 1680, his mother’s on 11 May 1708 and his own on 24 February 1722, each in the year the family book gives.

It also holds the baptisms of the seven children of Josephus and Anna Maria, the seven the family book lists, and no other child of the couple: Josephus on 14 October 1693, Ursus on 24 March 1696, Catharina on 23 November 1698, Joannes Sebastianus on 20 January 1701, Sigismundus on 14 September 1703, Joannes Jacobus on 1 September 1707 and Maria Eva on 14 January 1715. The mother is written Maria Carl, Maria Carler, Anna Maria Carler or Anna Maria Carl.

The marriage

The marriage is given here at Rheinweiler, the place the family book names, on 25 January 1693. Two FamilySearch indexes of the Bamlach register give the same day and place the wedding at Bamlach: the collection Germany, Marriages, 1558–1929 writes the couple Josephus Dossenbach and Anna Maria Carlin and gives both as born at Bamlach, and the Freiburg Catholic Church Records index writes the groom Josephus Rossnbach, a misreading of the surname, and the bride Anna Maria Carl. Neither names the couple’s parents. Since Rheinweiler belonged to the parish of Bamlach, Bamlach is most likely where the marriage was entered in the church book, and the parish’s name the birthplace the first index gives; Rheinweiler was the couple’s village.

The second line

Two links of the line through Ursus are probable rather than proved. Maria Ursula’s place as his daughter rests on the family book and on the index of a baptism at Bamlach on 18 January 1727, of an Anna Maria Ursula Dossenbach whose parents are written Ursus Dossenbach and Anna Maria Freyl. Her son Christian is most likely the Christianus Zehringer baptized on 15 August 1764, a son of Christian Zehringer and Maria Ursula Dossenbach, but another Christian Zähringer, married to Elisabetha Merz and living after 1800, could be that child; his birth year is not known.