Anna Christina Willi and Johannes Reichard Hohl

On 17 Feb 1778 Johannes Reichard Hohl married Anna Christina Willi in Freinsheim. She was the daughter of Anna Catharina Fuhrmann and Johann Peter Willi, born in Freinsheim on 23 May 1756 and christened four days later.

The record I received from the Verbandsgemeinde Freinsheim says that Johannes Reichard was an Ackerer. This is an older word for farmer, related to the English word acre. I haven't been able to establish a reliable birth record for Johannes Reichard. I have birth records for two men named Johannes Hohl, one of them the son of Anna Elisabetha Krether and Johann Peter Hohl born 09 Mar 1754 and the other the son of Anna Catharina and Johann Jacob Hohl born 19 Jun 1757. I haven't found any birth records for a man named Johannes Reichard Hohl. There's something odd about that name, too. In most of the Freinsheim records I've seen, Johannes is used without a second name. When there's a second name, Johann is used instead - Johann Peter, Johann Jacob, etc. I wonder if Johannes Reichard was originally christened Johannes and the "Reichard" came into use only afterwards, possibly to distinguish him from his cousin?

All of the children christened in Freinsheim under the name Hohl between 1761 and September 1798 were the children of Anna Christina and Johannes Reichard. There were seven, although one died young:

• Maria Elisabetha born 04 Mar 1779, christened the same day. She married Johann Jakob Engel in Freinsheim on 04 Feb 1799. She died and was buried in Freinsheim on 28 Sep 1833;
• Maria Agnesia born 05 Mar 1781, christened 06 Mar 1781;
• Catharina born 28 Oct 1783, christened 29 Oct 1783. Probably the Catharina Hohl who married Michael Michel;
• Juliana born 12 May 1786, christened 14 May 1786. She was deceased by Aug 1789;
• Juliana born August 1789, christened 09 Aug 1789;
• Anton born 27 Nov 1790, christened 28 Nov 1790; and
• Reichard born 04 Nov 1794, christened 06 Nov 1794. He married Catharina Felicitas Walz in Freinsheim on 10 Sep 1826. They had two sons.

There may have been two more children born in the records gap between September 1798 and January 1816. I have two Freinsheim marriage records for people named Hohl that I can't find birth records for, Anna Christina Hohl and Daniel Hohl. The marriage records don't show the parents' names, but as I mentioned, Anna Christina and Johannes Reichard seem to have been the only Hohl couple bearing children in Freinsheim in the late 1700s.

Anna Christina Hohl married Johann Adolph Pirrmann in Freinsheim 02 Dec 1824. This suggests that she was born no later than 1806. It seems quite likely that she was born sometime between October 1798 and 1806 to Johannes Reichard Hohl and Anna Christina Willi, who would have been 42-50 years old and thus still capable of bearing a child.

Daniel Hohl married Margaretha Wiegand in Freinsheim on 10 Aug 1837. They had seven children.

Daniel's birth is a trickier case to figure out. If Anna Christina Willi was his mother, he can't have been born much later than 1806. That would make him at least 31 at the time of his marriage. That's plausible. Reichard Hohl, for example, was 32 when he married Catherina Felicitas Walz. However, it's also possible that Daniel was Reichard's son by a previous wife, the son of Reichard's older brother Anton or the illegitimate son of any of Reichard's older sisters.

Note: Most of the information I have on the Werner, Engel and Sohn families in Freinsheim from the late 17th to the mid 19th centuries came to me in 2004 courtesy of Siegfried Barth, archivist with the Verbandsgemeinde Freinsheim (Freinsheim Community Association). Where possible I've supplemented it with church records available at FamilySearch.org. Many thanks to Herr Barth and also to my late granduncle Robert Werner, who made the first contact and then recruited my help because he and Herr Barth had no languages in common.