It amuses me that my ancestral Y chromosomes passed through two cities that are now twinned with Oxford. My granddad studied at Bonn and met my grandmother there, and his grandfather Richard the railways clerk was born and bred in Breslau (now Wroclaw), as was his father. The minimal dates are 1830-1877, but the data peters out on the far side, so the actual stay may have been longer.
Breslau had a turbulent early history which included total destruction by the Mongols in 1241. It became part of Prussia in 1741. When various educational institutions merged to form a university in 1811, it was the first university that had faculties for both catholic and protestant theology. In 1815, Breslau became the capital of the Province Silesia.
It grew rapidly in the Industrial Revolution and in 1842 it became only the 5th major city (with more than 100,000 residents) in the Deutscher Bund, after Vienna, Berlin, Prague and Hamburg. In 1875 it was the third biggest city in the German Empire (after Berlin and Hamburg).
Couldn't quite find a postcard to match the time range when my ancestors lived in Breslau, but this one is at least from the correct century.
What happened:
1830 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Groß was born in Breslau. There are no dates and documents before that and conflicting information on the name and profession of his father, so it's quite possible that some of his ancestry was present at Breslau well before that date, but we don't know. There is an address though: At the time of his baptism (4.4.1830), the family lived at Büttnerstrasse 23 in Breslau.
1852 Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Groß married Anna Rosina Faudner from Chursangwitz (Kr. Ohlau) in Breslau on June 1. The marriage must have been a little bit overdue, as only three months and a week later, their son Johann Friedrich Richard Groß was born in Breslau.
1866 Richard's confirmation in Breslau.
1874 Richard was spared military service due to crossed legs and height - not sure if he was too tall or too short but looking at his descendants as well as the literal meaning of our name being tall, I don't think he can have been too short.
Between 1877 - 1879 he married twice-widowed Maria Louise Mentzel, presumably between the birth of her son from her second marriage, in 1877, and the birth of their daughter. Although she wasn't born in the city, her previous marriage to shepherd Johann Gottlieb Reim was also in Breslau, and her son from that marriage was born there.
1880 By the time their first daughter arrived, the family had left the city and moved to Königswalde (Neurode). Their further moves are written out in this entry.
Independently of all of this, here's my great-aunt-in-law at Breslau in the 1930s, scroll down to see one photo of her with a recognisable cityscape and then the matching postcard.
Locations:
- Büttnerstrasse 23
Previously in the #lostcities series:
- Elberfeld / Wuppertal 1919 - 1961
- Strasbourg 1901 - 1908
- Minden 1903 - 1952/ca.1970
- Tangermünde 1888 - 1916
- Rheydt 1923 - 1935
- Königsberg 1935 - 1945
- Aachen 1936 - 1940
- Idar-Oberstein 1940 - 1962
- Bad Nauheim 1945 - 1972/1983
- Würzburg 1961 - 1968
- Hamborn inlaws: 1922 - 1979/2015
- Bonn 1929-1934
- Lorsch 1890-1938/1973
- Krefeld 1764 - 1924/current
- Gütersloh 1825-1928/1950s
NB I have now added a second end date to the cities where other family members stayed on after the direct ancestors died. So far, that is the case for Minden, Bad Nauheim, Hamborn and Krefeld.
The Mastodon thread for season 2 starts here.
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