In 1700, in the countryside between Pforzheim and Stuttgart, there was a village by the name of Wiernsheim near the Schwarzwald or “Black Forest.” The town is still there today in the twenty-first century.
In Wiernsheim lived a Pflüger family. The father was Hans Jerg Pflüger, and the mother was Maria Hübsch. Hans Jerg and Maria had five children, all of them listed in the town’s Church Register, the Kirchenregister. They named their first son Hans Jerg (Hans George) after his father and perhaps other ancestors. This son was born in 1703 on the first of January. Other children followed:
Anna Margarete, born 21 September 1704 Maria Barbara, born 19 July 1706 Jakob Sebastian, born 15 July 1707 Johann Friedrich, born 1709
Nothing is known of the young family of five during the years when they were growing up. On 10 May 1718 the father, Hans Jerg the elder, remarried so it is assumed that his wife Maria died before that date. His second wife was Sophie Margarete Reyle, and she was from nearby Iptingen. This marriage added five more children to the household: an unnamed child born and died in 1720; Georg Adam born 1722 one of a set of twins; Christian Gottfried born 1722 and twin to Georg Adam; Elisabeth Judith born 1724 also a twin; and Maria Sophia twin to Elisabeth.
When Hans Jerg, son of Hans Jerg the elder, reached maturity, he soon married Anna Elisabeth Strobel. Their two children are listed in the Kirkenbuch as Anna Elisabeth born 1726 and Ursula Catharina born 1728. Entries for this family end here. At the same time a strange entry for a marriage, attributed to Hans Jerg the elder, presents a puzzle: the entry states that Hans Jerg married Eva Franzisk Jost from Pinache, another neighboring town. The solution to the puzzle may be explained in the events that followed the marriage of a Hans Jerg to an Eva.
The story continues soon.