♂Simon Basler

Simon Basler (1711–1778) was a native of Rheinweiler, a village on the Upper Rhine in Baden, Germany, who married Maria Eva Dossenbach in 1734 and had ten children with her over the next twenty-five years. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through his son Fidel Basler (1759–1808).

Early life

Simon was born at Rheinweiler in 1711 and was probably baptized at Bamlach on 27 October that year, the son of Franciscus Jacobus Basler (1680–1748) and Catharina Schultz (died 1749), who had married the year before. 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 eldest of four sons: Joannes Melchior followed in 1717, and the twins Franciscus Jacobus and Benedictus were baptized together on 6 July 1721.

Marriage and family

Simon Basler and Maria Eva Dossenbach married at Rheinweiler on 30 May 1734, when he was twenty-two and she was nineteen. Their first child, Catharina, was baptized at Bamlach on 19 November 1734, less than six months after the wedding, and their tenth and last, Fidel, was most likely baptized there on 20 April 1759. Six of the ten bore names already in the family: Franciscus Jacobus and Catharina, the names of Simon’s parents; Josephus and Anna Maria, those of Maria Eva’s; and Simon and Maria Eva, their own. Simon died at Rheinweiler in 1778 and is taken to be the Simon buried at Bamlach on 6 April that year. Maria Eva survived him by seven years and is said to have died at Rheinweiler in 1785.

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 Simon Bassler, gives his birth at Rheinweiler in 1711 and his death there in 1778, and names his parents as Franciscus Jacobus Bassler (1680–1748) and Catharina Schultz, a widow at her death in 1749, who married at Rheinweiler in 1710. It gives his marriage to Maria Eva Dosenbach in 1734 and lists their ten children, from Catharina in 1734 to Fidel in 1759. Maria Eva’s death at Rheinweiler in 1785 rests on the family book alone. The book writes the surname Basler from 1786, the form kept here.

The church-book index

FamilySearch’s index of the Bamlach church book, in the Freiburg Catholic Church Records collection, gives his baptism on 27 October 1711 as Simon Bassler, son of Franz Jacobus Bassler and Catharina Schultz, the parents the family book gives; the register page itself is not available. The same index holds the marriage of Jo Jacobus Bassler and Catharina Schultz in November 1710 and the baptisms of Simon’s three brothers, Joan Melchior on 6 January 1717 and Franciscus Jacobus and Benedictus on 6 July 1721, and no other child of that couple.

It also holds one baptism for each of Simon and Maria Eva’s ten children, the ten the family book lists, from Catharina on 19 November 1734 to Fidelis Bassler on 20 April 1759, whose entry names Simon Bassler and Maria Eva Dossenbach as his parents. Two of the ten entries write the mother’s name differently: Mari Anna Dossenbäch in 1745 and Maria Eva Bassler in 1754.

The marriage

The marriage is given here at Rheinweiler, the place the family book names, on 30 May 1734. Two FamilySearch indexes of the Bamlach register give the same day: the collection Germany, Marriages, 1558–1929 writes the couple Simon Bassler and Mari-Eva Dossenbach and places the wedding at Bamlach, and the Freiburg Catholic Church Records index writes them Simon Basler and Mari Eva Dossenbaech. Ancestry’s index of the entry gives the bride’s birthplace as Rheinweiler. Neither index 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 Rheinweiler the couple’s village.

His burial

The burial of a Simon Bassler at Bamlach on 6 April 1778 is known from FamilySearch’s index of the Bamlach church book, in the year the family book gives for his death. His son Simon (1745–1815) was living until 1815, so the entry is taken to be the father’s.