Heinrich Family History Research
After almost twenty years of private research on the Heinrich Family, we seem to have come to an impasse in Bolten, Moravia, Austria in 1632 with the birth of Michael Heinrich.
Our ancestors immigrated to Texas from villages in Moravia from what has been dubbed the "German Triangle." They were Catholic and spoke German, although some of them could also speak Czech. After a search of the history of the area, we found the reason for the presence of these "pockets" of Germans living among the Czechs.
Before the 13th century, the property belonged to the church, namely to the one who organized the church. Because the King established most of the churches, he naturally owned most of the land. In 1214 AD, Bishop Ondrej of Prague rose to power. In 1221 AD, he began to acquire and control the lands of Bohemia and Moravia. Since there were insufficient local inhabitants to work the lands, the King called in colonists from Germany. The Czech nobility, who naturally disliked the wealth and strength they brought to the Crown, frowned on the German immigrants. There was much native Czech resentment against the incoming foreigners, one of the reasons being that most of the Germans made no attempt to learn the language of the country they had chosen to adopt.
During the time of the Hussite Wars (around 1427 AD) the German colonization effort was weakened. However, after the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) the war of religious freedom in Austria, a new Germanization effort began and more German peasants and workmen were brought in from Germany to settle in the desperately depopulated areas. The general effect of the upheavals of the seventeenth century was to create a state of affairs in which the upper social strata were German and the lower were Czech. Thus the outline of the social problems of the 19th century were beginning to appear.
There was Germanizing, Czeching, and Moravianizing going on among these people, but "pockets" were still apparent. Language and culture were tenaciously adhered to, and this caused small groups of Czechs near small groups of Germans, near small groups of Bohemians, near small groups of Moravians. Where Germans and other groups would not or could not mix, one or the other would disappear from the scene, or they remained intact next to each other. It should be noted that it was from the area of this German triangle that the persecuted, mostly German Moravian Brethren religious society immigrated to Herrnhut in southeast Germany and then, in 1734, to Savannah, Georgia; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and finally to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Since we seem to have reached an impasse with the birth of Michael Heinrich in 1632, we have come to the conclusion that our ancestors were part of the German colonization of Moravia that occurred before or during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Although we have spent many years trying to make the connection between the Heinrich family in Germany and our ancestors in Moravia, we have had absolutely no success. Because of this lack of success we decided that the only way that we might be able to make the connection is to gather everything possible about the German Moravians and the Heinrich family worldwide. Through this effort we hope to find someone somewhere whose Heinrich ancestors had family members who were part of the German colonization of Moravia. This could provide the link of the Heinrichs in Moravia with the Heinrichs in Germany, a link that has continued to elude us.
Will you help us in our search? Will you send use any information that you have on the Heinrich family or any other German Moravia family? In return, we will send you any information that we might have that links to your family. We will also continue to publish the Heinrich and German Moravian information on the Internet so that you will have access. For large amounts of data we prefer to receive Gedcom files send by e-mail. For individual families please use the "Family Input Form" at this web site. We will also accept this information anyway that you wish to submit.