Tracing Four Centuries of the Hasselbacher Family

For a family gathering in Oberrossbach in 1996, the late Fritz Hasselbacher prepared a wonderful document outlining much of what he had gathered about the Hasselbacher family of Franconia and Austria.  It emphasized his family line and that which was to become the Illinois Hasselbachers.  Nonetheless the common parts are of inestimable value to us all and provided the framework that I used to connect my family line with his.  The document was given to me last year by Fritz's family who also gave me permission to make public some of his writings.  When I said that all Hasselbachers owe a debt to Fritz, I had material like this in mind.

The original document is in German.   A good friend of mine, George Aronoff,  translated the introductory section for me and I present that for you below.  He is not a professional translator and some of his interpretations are in parentheses. I know that there are many more stories buried in the rest of the document.  If you are in a position to help further with the translation, please contact me below. (I have a crude electronic translation that I hesitiate to post.) 

The first sample page (43 KB) is available as a pdf document.  Here is also the textual portion (427 KB) of the entire document and an appendix (1 MB) that may not be present in the GFF version below.  The appendix contains a family tree and copies of some of the ancient Franconian church records that have been used to compile the family history.  I have recent photographs and translations of these and others that I will share.

The document was placed on file several years ago by Fritz at the Gesellschaft für Familienforschung in Franken e.V., in Nürnberg.  It has been available in Germany for some time but I only saw it there last month when I visited,  The GFF is a wonderful resource of genealogical materials and I will be posting other materials I found there. (Our people have been in the history books!)

Peter Hasselbacher
Louisville KY
Feb 7, 2007. Updated 6/7/2007