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Archiver > BANAT > 2007-01 > 1169666657


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Subject: Re: [BANAT-L] Elberta, Al., not just Chgo Banat, also ND, Wis.Ohio,Il, Pa., Mi etc.
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:24:17 EST


To Dave and other Banat list members;

My name is Kathy Simonik Bevier. My Gr grandparents, Jacob Weiland and
Veronica Mayer were original settlers in Elberta, Al., Baldwin Co. Al. (near Gulf
Shores and Foley), having moved there from Pittsburgh in 1910. My parents
retired there, and my Dad is in a nursing home there now. My Mom and our
family live in Elgin, near Chicago. Elberta is an extremely important Banat
secondary destination because it contains not just Chicago families, but also
many of their friends and relatives representing most American Banat cities,
as well as relatives who came direct to the US from Germany or Austria in the
mid 1800's. There are also families who emigrated direct from Alsace
through Texas or New Orleans, who are somehow related to these later arriving
Banat families. Elberta is a very good location to connect our families to
earlier German or French German branches of the same family. There is also a
wealth of transcribed information online on the Al. Gen Web, Baldwin Co. site ,
and the State of Alabama official web site, and at the Foley Public
Library, home of the Baldwin Co. Genealogical Association. Available information
includes extensive census, marriage and cemetery and obit. information from
most churches in the area. This includes records of some Jewish
Austrio-Hungarians who settled in Alabama. Surnames of the early Elberta settlers look
almost like a duplication of sets of names in Milwaukee, ND, Ohio, , Ozaukee
Co. Wis. etc. The 1928 book, "A Brief History of Baldwin County," can be
found on the Ancestry site, in the Family history books section. This book
also details a French colony who came to Baldwin Co. via Montreal and North
Dakota, and Croatians, and Bohemians. ( The Bohemians were probable
actually Slovak-Cz who were really Geman also, and seemed to be related to the
Banaters, but that was not known when the book was written. ) There is also
more recent, detailed book at the Foley Library.

There is also a fairly large Scandinavian settlement included in this
development, many who moved down from the Dakotas and Minn, and Nebraska, located
in the Silverhill area.

Many Elberta families came from Glogowatz-Glogan, which has a good web site
giving detailed lists of families and their specific Alsace origins. My
family seemed to previously know these Glogowatz people, but came from
Temesvar-Hogyuez -Sackel Hedges(sp?)., previously having lived in Donau County
,Germany. Veronica Mayer's ancestors came from Munich; Jacob Weiland's family
came from Graz, Steiermark Austria and Jaam, Hungary, near Burgenland. My
Alabama cousins still get letters from relatives in Austria. Will give specific
lists of names and locations in a separate note. I have no details for
these earlier locations, but I suspect most of my Banat family left Germany a
later date--mid 1800's.

Johnny Weissmueller is part of this large Elberta-Chicago-Pittsburgh family
group. My Grandma, Mary Weiland Simonik, worked as the cook for Fred Mandel
(owner of Mandel Bros. Dept. Stores in Chicago), who employed as servants and
was acquainted socially with many Austrio-Hungarians, as well as well-known
people in the entertainment and literary fields, including Weissmueller and
Edgar Rice Burroughs , author of the Tarzan Books. Burroughs sometimes
named his characaters after his friends and relatives, and I believe the ape in
the Tarzan books, Kerchak, is named after an Elberta family. I have
recognized members of Burroughs own French Huguenot Michigan - early New York Dutch
background in other characters---Jane PORTER, Capt. Carson NAPIER etc. (
NAPIERalski or NAPIERala- chek (?) is a Banat or Austrio- Hungarian name.)
Burroughs was extremely interested in genealogy, and has many boxes of family
history material at his Tarzana, Cal. ranch. As a young boy his parents sent
him from Chicago to Montana for a year, where he probably came in contact with
Austrio-Hungarians working in the mines. One winter my Grandma went with
Mandels to their Palm Springs house, and Burroughs asked them to have her cook
Thanksgiving dinner for him at his Tarzana ranch. Burrough's biographer,
Porges, also has a Banat-Austrio-Hungarian background. I would really like to
learn more about this connection of Burroughs to Banaters.

Earlier Baldwin Co. settlers included people who had migrated originally
from East Coast areas which are known to have very early German settlements
(1700's), including some areas which had people with documented French Huguenot
ancestry. This includes Culpepper Co. Va. and Foulquier Co. as well as some
Penn. Dutch Germans. Some Penn. Dutch settlements are known to have Huguenot
ancestry. By the time these people moved to Baldwin Co. the names were
complete Anglicanized, with no hint of German or French.

My husband's family, Beviers, is a well-documented French Huguenot family
who fled France in the 1600's, first stopping as refugees at
Frankenthal-Mannheim, Rhineland , Phaltz, Germany. This is the same area where many Banat
Germans originated.

French Huguenots are French Protestants who came from French Flanders
(Walloons) or further on in France, and are not the same as Alsace French German.
They were persecuted by the Catholic French Kings and many fled France in the
1500-1600's. Many went to Germany or to England, Scotland, Sweden,
Switzerland, Scotland, and then on to America from the 1600's to 1800's with the
ethnic identity of their new country. Huguenots were instructed to blend in
with their new neighbors and erase their French identity, since agents of the
Pope were sent to track them down even America. Over 70,000 Huguenots were
killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris in one single day, by
the Catholic French Government.

Other Huguenots eventually migrated on to Austria-Hungary, including the
Banat. There were some intermarriages, some conversions due to the political
situation in Germany, and some just followed the same migration patterns as
other Germans, continuing to move East, and then to America around 1900 with
the rest of the Banaters. Along the way the names changed from French to
German to Slovak, Hungarian etc. I believe the Bieber in the Gutwein surname list
could actually be a Bevier. I have studied almost every early surname in
Baldwin Co. and have seen strong indications that some Banat and earlier
East Coast originating settlers have probable Huguenot ancestry.

At present the Bevier- Elting Family Association and the Huguenot
Historical Society, in New Paltz, New York, is trying to identify Beviers and other
Huguenots who blended in with their new countries, and emigrated to the US much
later with other German and East European ethnic groups. In fact, the
Bevier genealogist, Dale BeVier, lives in Baldwin Co., and I am not sure he is
aware of the very probable possibility of Huguenots in his own back yard. I
suspect there is some Huguenot ancestry hidden in more Banat communities.
The problem is separating documented Huguenot families from Alsace French
Germans, and finding pre-Banat records.

I had asked a Baldwin County genealogist, also a Banater, if she had ever
heard of these settlers having French Huguenot background, and she said she
had heard vague rumors. Then I asked her the name of the local Catholic
church, and she said St. BARTHOLOMEW. I told her about the St. BARTHOLOWMEW'S Day
Massacre, and it was like a light switch being turned on!

I'll send my specific family information later, and would like to connect my
family to other Banat relatives. I don't personally have detailed
information about people other than my own relatives, but would be glad to connect
with people who think they may be related. In the meantime, a good
suggestion would be to study the Alabama web sites and read a little Huguenot
history, and this will start making sense.

Kathy Simonik Bevier


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