Epler Family, Germany
ancestral origin: Swabia, emigration to Galicia in 1783
localities: Balingen County, Swabia; Reichau
& Einsingen, Galicia
secondary localities: Winnipeg, Canada, and Walhalla, North
Dakota, USA
associated surnames: Eppler, Appler, Aeppler, Mauthe,
Hell, Kemper, Schoenberger, Linder, Single, Vorreiter, Kreuzer, Buffy,
Rothenbusch, Kaufmann, Konzelmann, Martin, Link, Lang, Bechtloff,
Schwarzwaelder, Ulrich, Rohs
Welcome! The origins of this family can be located at the village of Hossingen, Balingen county, Swabia (southern Germany), in the 16th century. At the beginning of church registers, Steffan Eppler married Ursula and they had a son named Hans, born Aug 16, 1604. He in turn married Maria and they had a son named Hans, born June 25, 1631.
Thus the family continued for several generations until in 1738 Johannes Eppler was born. His father had married a girl in neighboring Oberdigisheim and had moved there. Johannes decided to accept Emperor Franz Joseph II's offer to provide land and tools to Germans who would settle in his newly acquired (formerly Polish) territories and he emigrated to Austria. In 1783 he and his wife Ursula Linder as well as their 9 children (aged 1 to 16) moved across half of Europe first to Vienna for registration and then to Galicia, now Ukraine, where they eventually settled in the newly-formed German village of Einsingen northwest of the city of Lemberg (now Lviv). On their way it happened that one letter in the family name was dropped and they came to be called Epler. (Some branches of the family later put the -p- back in again, though.)
In the course of just a few years around 15.000 emigrants from
several areas in Germany had moved to Galicia, making up less than one
per cent of the (mainly Polish and Ukrainian) population. They usually
stuck to their German (mostly Lutheran) heritage and married among one
another until they had to leave the country in 1939/40 when the
Russians took over. During these 155 years the Epler clan had
multiplied and spread out. After the resettlement in Germany they were
scattered all over the country.
Here is the list of surnames that came up in our family research: Epler List.
Our goal is to locate the different surviving branches of this emigrant Epler family. We welcome everybody who can add material to the list of names and events and we offer to cooperate in research and share our results. Thanks to Herr Dr Eduard Epler, Berlin, and his energetic work, over 1000 individuals belonging to the clan have been found so far. Some became Polish, others Canadian, American or British citizens. But most of them live in Germany. It is a most fascinating story, making European history come alive!
It is also fascinating to renew contacts between families of the former German settlers in Galicia. A few have been found on the internet already: Buffi, Kemper, Mattern, Mauthe. We can easily help one another in our family history research.
In 2019 the first Eppler history appeared in book form (in German, 188 pages), entitled "Einmal Galizien und zurück", by Heide and Lothar Weisser of Freiburg. Please write if you are interested. We will help you contact the authors.
And we found several other Epler family groups in Germany, not
connected to ours:
- Dresden (emigrated to Southwest Africa in 1914)
- Gaiberg near Heidelberg (emigrated to the USA)
Homepage online since September 1997.
Name lists of German settlers in Galicia,
grouped according to place, are now availabe on CD-ROM for many
different locations.
Please contact http://www.galiziengermandescendants.org
This is also the most important internet resource for all those researching their ancestors in Galicia (Austria-Hungary).