Earlier this year, Episode 5 of season 10 of Finding Your Roots aired, and I was given new insights into the origin of my Haussler line. In that episode Bob Odenkirk was shown a military record for his ancestor who was from the Bas-Rhin area of Alsace, France. That got my attention because that’s where my ancestor, Francis Haussler, was born. The ancestor in the show was born in 1790 and served in Napoleon’s army. I immediately realized Francis’ father was born in 1792 in France, most likely in Alsace since he was a German-speaker, and wondered if he also served in Napoleon’s army? Eventually I came around to wondering if that was why the Hausslers immigrated to the US?
Cue montage music over a bunch of research into French military conscription, arrondissements, cantons and communes, and familysearch.org records for the area. The big hurdle was discovering that Kuttolsheim, the commune (civil township) where Francis was born, wasn’t always in the same arrondissement and canton that it is today. Those administrative divisions got modified over time. The other issue was that the available records didn’t cover the time period when the father, Ferdinand aka Frederick, was the correct age for conscription.
Then I realized something else was true about this family. Francis’ brother Leonard was born in 26 Apr 1820 in France. This date comes from his registration for the Civil War draft.1
There was the equivalent of draft records for the year 1840 that listed all the males born in 1820. After spending time looking in records for Savern arrondissement where Kuttolsheim is located now and not finding it where it should be, my gut told me to look in Strasbourg arrondissement, where it had been in the earlier part of the 20th century. 519 images later, this appeared on my screen (cropped):
This is why researching genealogy is so much fun. The high that comes from finding a gold nugget after panning for hours makes it all worthwhile. The willingness to look at every page of that reel of digitized microfilm came from knowing that families move around. There was no expectation of finding Leonard in Kuttolsheim in 1840. The record was found in the list for the (1840) canton Cruchtersheim and the commune Schnersheim…3 miles from Kuttolsheim.
The draft registration record for Leonard provides a great deal of information. The obvious thing is the birth date, which lines up with the date in the Civil War registration, proving it is the same man. The 1.2. under his name indicates he could read and write. The birth place of Kuttolsheim is key. Leonard was born in Kuttolsheim in 1820 and Francis was born in the same place in 1824. Given how small that commune is, even today, makes the case that they were brothers and that Andrew, the middle son, was probably born in the same place in 1823. The next column was for the occupation of the parents. Ferdinand is shown as a sellier, which translates to skilled tradesman or saddler. And the mother, Barbe Lochner (!!!) appears to be keeping house. Learning the mother’s name is a gift from the genealogy gods.
There was one more important detail on the next image after Leonard’s registration: the date the record was created: 10 Jan 1841. What happened next?
Six months later, on 23 Jun 1841, the vessel Rose arrived at the Port of New York.2 On board were Ferdinand, Leonard and Maria, aged 16 with their seven trunks.
After searching various databases I am comfortable saying that Ferdinand did not serve in Napoleon’s army. Still, it would have been impossible not to know how disruptive such service was to the lives of his contemporaries. Who could blame him for seeing the 1840 conscription registration as a wake-up call that the lives of his sons might be similarly disrupted? As a reason to immigrate to America, it holds up pretty well.
The Lazy Genealogist 