Moselle - 18th century Protestant Church records - do they exist?
My ancestors moved from Herbitzheim/Keskastel, Alsace to the vicinity of Willerwald, Sarralbe, Hambach in Moselle from the 1720s to the 1740s, then moved back to Herbitzheim. Today this is a 10 minute journey by car.
During the time they lived in Herbitzheim/Keskastel, Alsace, there are extensive Protestant Parish register records in which my ancestors appear in baptismal, marriage and death records in Alsace Archives and on FamilySearch.org. They traveled back to Herbitzheim a few times to appear as sponsors in baptismal records there during this time.
During the time they lived in the vicinity of Willerwald, etc., in Moselle, 1725-1740ish, there are zero Protestant Parish records in Moselle Archives for any of the towns and villages in that area, not just during the time they lived there, but for the 18th century, in general.
Why? Do these records exist somewhere else?
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This is just what I found in a quick search. Moselle was in the Lorraine Province. You can see those provinces in the FamilySearch Wiki page here:
However, according to Wikipedia, Lorraine was not annexed into France until 1766, which might be why you can't find your ancestors in French records. Lorraine was occupied several times in the 18th century until it was finally annexed by France. The back and forth occupations by France might explain a loss of records, but we'd need an expert to confirm that. It looks like Lorraine might have been part of Poland, with periodic occupations by France, during the time your ancestors lived there. You can read about the history of the Duchy of Lorraine here.
You can also see the FamilySearch Wiki page for Moselle here:
It might give you more places to search.
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Thanks for replying and for your comments, link, etc.! I read under the France Archives page that, in 1792, all parish records prior to that time were pulled to the regional archives for storage, so was guessing that if the Protestant parishes existed, that those parishes would still have had their records collected. Records for the Catholic parishes are listed for this time….. I do know that there was persecution of some Protestant sects/denominations, etc., during this time, likely why my ancestors emigrated. But, like you say, we need an expert or someone else who has been through this search before. It is a very complex situation.
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