| Notes |
- Jean-Baptiste writes to Sue Dippel in 2002:
…..”the old German empire (Holy Roman Empire). It was purely a political confederation, and did not confer rights of free movement. Each state in it was effectively a separate country where people had to follow the religion of their overlord. Not only were there laws against immigration but most territories had laws against their people leaving. Where there was migration, it was politically approved, either to repopulate after wars or to obtain skills.
The whole history of that era is about the struggle for liberty, for religious change and for German unity. It’s a mistake to assume that what was there at the end of the story was there from the beginning. Our people moved to Australia as a result of the new freedoms, but they still had to apply for permission to depart.
Our Dreis ancestors lived in the Rheingau region of a country called Nassau. There has been some historical research into out-groups that immigrated to the Rheingau: Jews, a few Italians, the occasional Swiss and a few brewers from Liege (modern Belgium). Protestants were not allowed. I’ve not heard of significant migration by Alsations to Nassau.
I take a major interest in migration, because Hannah Dreis married the son of Franz Bouffier of Concord, who was also a Rheingau emigrant. The Bouffiers had lived in the Rheingau for 250 years. I have been searching for the past 18 years for an explanation of why they had a French name, but have only found one migration episode that would be a possible explanation: the hiring of Liege brewers”.
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1808 - 1883 (~ 74 years)