An odd Wikipedia reference led me to the source of my name as well as mid 16th century ancestry.

Last week I wrote about the search where my first name Anton came from, beyond being named after my maternal grandfather Anton Arnold Bast (1903-1969). I concluded it came from my grandfather’s great uncle, Anton Link who lived from 1803 to 1881.
I also mentioned that finding anything further away than the early 1800s was likely impossible, because, as my father was told when he searched in the 1980s/1990s, the relevant archives in Germany were destroyed during WWII.

The various Basts from 1800-1850 I found in public archives and my namesake Anton Link were born, lived, married, and died in the German village Ransbach, although they also lived, married and died in the Netherlands during those same years.
Ransbach is a small village, between 1000 and 2000 people in 1800-1850, in the old County Nassau in current Germany. It has a Wikipedia page, mostly on account of being old (at least mid 14th century), and having a history of producing ceramics. The Wikipedia page is unremarkable, but one line caught my eye. A single reference under ‘Literature’ to Horst Theisen: Ortsfamilienbuch Ransbach-Baumbach 1550-1930. 2. Bände. Weißenthurm: Cardamina 2019; ISBN 978-3-86424-469-8. Ortsfamilienbuch, means book of family names in the village, and the title suggests it goes back to 1550? Would it have more information on my maternal ancestry? A content overview online even stated that it included people who had moved from Ransbach to the Netherlands.

The publisher has a website, with an online shop with books of local names for many German communities. So I ordered the book, almost 1400 pages in two A4 sized tomes, and took delivery of it yesterday.

A long list of names from a small village.

It is based on local church records (mostly the catholic church), from the mid 17th century onwards, the civic register from 1818 onwards, and builds on tax records and court records for the period 1550-1723. The latter come from the state and federal archives in Koblenz and Wiesbaden (not Cologne where my father inquired). The information for people who moved between Ransbach and Netherlands, or settled there, is based on the same online public archives I already consulted myself, making it easy for me to find the right ancestors in this book of local family names.

For my grandfather’s ancestors the book adds more details, such as exact dates of birth, marriage and death that the Dutch archives didn’t have. It also provides details on one more generation back in time. Born around 1750 they were the ones who came to settle in Ransbach, so the book doesn’t provide further details than that.

And then there is the information of my original namesake Anton Link. His parents, Hermann Link (1771-1844) and Anna Maria Bleyer (no dates) are listed as ‘wandering around Ransbach’ so apparently living rough, despite having 6 kids. His paternal grandfather and further paternal and maternal ancestors however are traceable much further into time, and seemed to have been wealthy enough to leave documented traces. All the way back to 1575, with fascinating glimpses of their lives from tax and court documents. Mentions of building and selling homes, a fistfight at a wedding, being listed as having 2 horses, a fine for grazing their cows on a field without permission of the land owner, renting a kiln to bake pottery, lending and claiming back sums of money or owing them.
No further Antons though, just this single one in the Link ancestry.

So there’s me, named after my grandfather who was born in 1903, in turn named after his great uncle born a century before him in 1803. And no Antons before or in between.

The church records in the Ransbach book provide the key. As mentioned Ransbach was predominantly catholic, and the church not just registered parents but also godparents. Anton Link’s godmother Anna Elisabeth Bleyer probably is his mother’s sister. And his godfather, who seems to be her fiancee at that moment is named Anton Hirtenjohann, born in Heinsberg around 1775. Curiously if I look for Anton Link’s godfather and godmother, despite not finding immediate evidence, I do come across a mention of both first and last names in the right decade as a married couple, where Anton Hirtenjohann is seemingly listed as Anton Arnold Hirtenjohann. Previously I concluded that my and my grandfather’s second name Arnold comes from somewhere unknown (no other Arnolds I came across at all, and Anton Link was named only Anton), yet here Anton and Arnold are again used together. If Anton Link’s godfather is the source of both my first names, I wonder what stories carried those two names forward in the Bast family for well over a century?

More exploration is perhaps in order around my second name, with uncertain outcomes. But I find it amazing already that all of this was traceable from home.