Maria Elisabetha Hohl and Johann Jakob Engel

On 04 Feb 1799 Johann Jakob Engel married Maria Elisabetha Hohl in Freinsheim. She was the daughter of Anna Christina Willi and Johannes Reichard Hohl, born in Freinsheim on 04 Mar 1779 and christened the same day. He was the son of Christoph Daniel Engel and Maria Katherina Butz, born in Freinsheim on 30 Nov 1777 (four months after Johann Jakob Werner) and christened the next day.

Johann Jakob and Maria Elisabetha were teenagers when the French Revolutionary Army of the Rhine invaded the Palatinate. This had some benefits, as the systems of law and administration introduced by the French Republic were more egalitarian. However, the change in government also created gaps in record keeping. Notably, I don't have access to church records of Protestant christenings between October 1798 and December 1815. Thanks to the Verbandsgemeinde Freinsheim I know that Maria Elisabetha and Johann Jakob had a daughter Katherina born in Freinsheim on 10 Apr 1814. However, I have no records as to Katherina's possible siblings.

Fourteen months after Katherina's birth, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. In 1816, the portion of the Palatinate west of the Rhine was turned over to the Kingdom of Bavaria, which meant a return to an older, less egalitarian system.

Maria Elisabetha died and was buried in Freinsheim on 28 Sep 1833.

Katherina married Jakob Werner in Freinsheim on 18 Apr 1837.

Johann Jacob is probably Jacob I Engel, husband of Elisabetha Hohl, who died and was buried in Freinsheim 27 Feb 1844.

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.