Greetings to all....
I had not until very recently realised how very close the seat of my forefathers ,the Ahlers from Hogenboegen/Varnhorn , was to the border of the Kingdom of Hannover and that a 4.5 km walk from Hogenboegen would find you in a Hannover township close to the Oldenburg duchy border .
Do any of you know of Hannover Ahlers who stem from the western part of that Kingdom ,who could conceivably have come from accross the duchy's border? I see that Wildeshausen and presumably its abbey is almost on the border of Hannover Kingdom . and thus I presume that the religious denomination change was on strict border lines ? Is that so ?
In restricting myself to research only the Catholic Ahlers of Oldenburg , how likely is it that I would have unwittingly rejected family members who happened Not to be R C ? What does the Ahlers "oracle ",Heiko say ?
Henk Aalders Hervey Bay, Qld haalders@bigpond.net.au i
Hello Henk,
you have touched a complicated history, of which I do not know very much. All this happened in an area that came to Oldenburg only in 1803 (or so). The area around Visbek, including Varnhorn, etc., had before belonged to the Episcopate of Münster and was mostly Catholic except for some Lutheran diaspora places. The parishes Wildeshausen, Großenkneten, and Huntlosen until 1803 were the "Hannoversches Amt Wildeshausen" and belonged to Hannover. Huntlosen and Großenkneten were prodominantly Protestant, but Wildeshausen had a sizeable Catholic population. The Electorate, later Kingdom, of Hannover was mostly Protestant but did have some places with Catholic population.
According to the Peace of Münster (1648) there was a rule "Cuius regio eius religio" which meant that the ruler of an area should determine what religion his subjects had to adhere to. Thus, following the book, Oldenburg (before 1803) subjects had to be Lutheran, Münster subjects Catholic. But this rule was enforced with different stringency, Oldenburg e.g. was relatively "liberal". Münster had a problem in that parts of the quite influential nobility flatly refused to go back to the Catholic faith - most of the area had been Protestant after the Reformation and were only "re-catholized" in the 17th century. Also, e.g. in Goldenstedt and some other places, the sovereign was the bishop of Münster, but the owner of several farms was the king of Hannover. His serfs, of course, were Protestant.
I hope this is enough to confuse you. You are quite right, borders were close, people did cross these borders, and they did "intermarry", although this did not happen really often. The Visbek area was quite stoutly Catholic, but still I would not rule out inter-religious marriage. Also, come to think of it, it was quite possible that for a certain farm the sovereign was the bishop, but the owner was one of the (Protestant) nobility.
Everything is possible,
from the oracle of Delphi
Heiko
and the best greetings to Queensland
"Henk Aalders" <henk.aalders39@gmail.com> schrieb: