Do the Wormser of Alsace form a single family?
16
JULY
2012
To a totally foreign observer the title of this contribution will sound incongruous: the Wormser surname refers to a more or less distant geographic origin, and there is no a priori reason for its carriers to be related.
To someone more familiar with the Alsatian Jewish communities can instead be given the impression of taking a steam hammer to break a nut; as it is well known that a Wormser family based in Breisach in the first half of the 17th century then spread in Alsace.
Reality stands in between. A systematic study of the ancestry of the bearers of the variants of the surname listed in 1784 has shown this: a majority can be attached - not without a certain degree of uncertainty - to the lineage of Breisach, but there are at least three completely autonomous families, in Landau, Bollwiller-Uffholtz and Saarlouis.
Finally we will mention three genealogical puzzles that remain entirely unsolved till now: the emergence of new carriers of the surname in the statements of 1808 Declaration of fixed names; the ancestry of Georges Wormser, well known personality in the world of politics and banking, and the origin of the Wormsers of Hartmannswiller, a subject particularly dear to the author.
| Speaker | Location |
|---|---|
|
Guy WORMS |
Pont des Arts B & C |