Big project

As a big part of my ancestors lived in Großheppach and I have studied these families intensively, I started already quite early to write down a family book of this village. This book contains all families who lived or could have lived in this village until ca. 1800. Today there are living around 3500 people. The population in 1800 was around 1200 people. 1600 there were around 1000 people living.

Today, Kleinheppach with its 1600 People is a part of Korb. But it was churchwise a part of Großheppach over many, many years. Over some periods they had the same church book, and the register was mixed. So it is not allways possible to devide into Groß- and Kleinheppach sharply. To make it easy and not to forget anybody, I put Kleinheppach also into the book. And the population of Kleinheppach was in comparison to Großheppach really small.

With the confession change of duke Christoph of Württemberg in 1550, Großheppach turned finally into a protestant community. Catholic or jewish people were not there. Heterodox people were de facto not existing. Only some rechristen or "Zwingli"-peoplewere existing partly. But tthere were often conflicts with the. So finally Kleinheppach and Großheppach with Gundelsbach was a "very normal" pietistic cummunity.

Source Material

Curch sources

The amount of sourches in Großheppach is good to very good. The baptist church records are available from 1558 and the marriage book from 1564. The death records start just from 1648, after the 30th year war. But this lack can be covered mostly. Only the year 1627 is difficult due to the pest epidemic and the many marriages that have been made then. And due to the fact, that the marriage book is not really detailed in this period. The church books were transfered in the 1990s from the parish office to the centrallised regional church archive in Stuttgart-Möhringen.

Secular sources

Beside of the church books, there are a lot of other documents available. As of records of rechristen people, visitation reports, military lists, tax lists, naturalisation, court reports, testament, oath of truce, buying and inventory lists or inheritance inventory lists. Th origainals are either in the main Württemberg archive in Stuttgart and are accessable and copyable or they are at the city archive of Weinstadt and are accessabe and duplicatable there.

What is inculded?

The base are the classic church records (baptism, marriages, burials). Then family books whre the families are sorted into families (from ca. 1750). The older ones between ca. 1750 and ca. 1810 contain additionally some some life stories, which have been written down by the priest during their marriage. These information I have also put into my book as well as military lists and partly the inheritance inventory lists and also information from church books of the closer villages. Citicenship naturalization and court reports. That means, this family book does not only live just from relationships,birth and dead, but also from all these small stories and additional information, which makes it more colourful. But this is also the reason, why it is still not ready...

Pre-release

As a pre-taste I want to release two documents here:

1. The first land register from Grossheppach is from 1832. It contains a card, a dscription of all buildings and a list of owners in Grossheppach. That means, it is clear, who was owner of which building in 1832. I put this together in a building-book, with pictures and adresses.

2. You will find as an extract a list of all foreign people (not from Grossheppach, Gundelsbach or Kleinheppach), which I have named in my family book. I have two files, sorted in villages and in names. Unfortunately the list is in German language. If you have further questions, please write me a mail.