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Subject: [PaCambri] Map of the Four French Rhineland Provinces 1794 - 1814
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 13:00:33 EST

For those of you who have ancestors coming from the West Bank of the
Rhine, you should be aware that for twenty years, after the conquests of Napoleon,
the area became a legal part of the French Nation. The Rhine River was
declared the "Natural Boundary" of France.
During those twenty years, the Napoleonic Code of Law was imposed and is
still a factor in those areas.
Churches were surpressed, although some continued in existence, and still
kept records. [St. Catherine in Leimen, and St. Peter and Paul's in Merzbalm
did so.]
The French Revolutionary Calendar was imposed, and for some time, even
the Church records were kept with those dates. [Look this up in an encyclopedia,
and try to find a parallel calendar that gives the Gregorian and
Revolutionary dates, if you find them in your research. Perhaps someone has some
suggestions?]
The French Government instituted, for the first time, Civil Records
completely independent of the Church Records, and it was possible to marry in a
Civil Ceremony. [Before that time, you could legally marry only in a Church
ceremony.] Eventually, in France, it became the law you had to have a civil
ceremony, then a religious, if you wished. These records are available from the
LDS Church, and are in French. They are also available for Alsace. Does anyone
know the proper numbers to order them? I have been told they contain many
birth, marriage and death records not included in the Church records.
Does anyone know about Military Records for that time? I am primarily
interested in Leimen, now in Rhineland Pfalz. How would you find them?
After Napoleon was defeated and sent into exile, the Council of Vienna
(1815) divided this land among the German principalities, and I have never been
able to find a map that shows the exact boundaries and which principalities
received which land. I do know Prussia got some of it, and some went to
Bavaria. This is the portion of Bavaria that does not adjoin the southern Bavaria,
and is often called RhBavaria or Rhenish Bavaria on the Census. It had
originally become part of Bavaria because the Whittlebach family of the Rhineland
died out, and the main Whittlebach family inherited it. If anyone would have
such a map, I would love to have it.
What I do have is a map of the Four Rhineland Districts on the West Bank
of the Rhine, as they were during the French period. I will be glad to send
it to anyone who sends me their snail mail address, as it cannot be scanned and
sent by me.

Marilyn Kline Washington

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