Zweibrucken District

Rhineland-Palatinate

Germany

Introduction

Surnames

Ancestral GenSite(s)

List of Localities

Website Resources

Image Gallery

Zweibrucken

Introduction

   Zweibrucken is an urban district (Kreisfreie Städte / Stadtkreise).  As such they are among the several German  cities which constitute a district in their own right. A similar concept is the Statutarstadt in Austria. The concept is comparable to the independent city in the English-speaking world.

     Zweibrücken is located in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river at the border of the Palatinate forest.

Zweibrücken ("two-bridges") is the Latin Bip Zweibrücken ("two-bridges") is the Latin Bipontinum; it appears in early documents also as Geminus Pons, and is called by the French Deux-Ponts.

   The independent territory was at first a county, the counts being descended from Henry I (Heinrich I.), youngest son of Simon I, count of Saarbrücken (d. 1182). This line, the Walramides, became extinct on the death of Count Eberhard (1393), who in 1385 had sold half his territory to the count palatine of the Rhine, and held the other half as his feudatory. Louis (d. 1489), son of Stephen, count palatine of Simmern-Veldenz, founded the line of the dukes of Zweibrücken.       The town was then the capital of the former Duchy of Zweibrücken.  The ducal castle is now occupied by the chief court of the Palatinate (Oberlandesgericht).  In 1559, a member of the line, Duke Wolfgang, founded the earliest grammar school of the town (Herzog-Wolfgang-Gymnasium), which existed until 1987. Duke Wolfgang also in 1557 converted his country to the new Lutheran faith.  After Charles X Gustav, the son of John Casimir, count palatine of Pfalz-Zweibrücken, succeeded his cousin Queen Christina of Sweden on the Swedish throne, Pfalz-Zweibrücken was in personal union with Sweden until 1718 though the House of Pfalz-Zweibrücken.

     In 1731, the Zimmern-Veldenz line of the dukes of Zweibrücken became extinct and the duchy passed to the Birkenfeld branch, whence it came under the sway of Bavaria in 1799. At the Peace of Luneville in 1801 Zweibrücken was ceded to France; on its reunion with Germany in 1814 the greater part of the territory was given to Bavaria, the remainder to Oldenburg and Kingdom of Prussia. The city of Zweibrücken became part of the Palatine region of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

At the ducal printing office at Zweibrücken the fine edition of the classics known as the Bipontine Editions was published (1779 sqq.).

     The last large social event before the First World War was the inauguration of the Rosengartens (rose gardens) by Princess Hildegard of Bavaria in June 1914. As consequence of the First World War, Zweibrücken was occupied by French troops between 1918 and 1930. In the course of Kristallnacht in 1938, the Zweibrücken synagogue were destroyed. With outbreak of the Second World War the city was evacuated in 1939-1940, as it lay in the ‘Red Zone’ on the fortified Westwall (Siegfried Line). Shortly before the end of the war, on 14 March 1945 the city was nearly completely destroyed from bombing by the Royal Canadian Air Force, with the loss of more than 200 lives. On 20 March American ground troops reached Zweibrücken. The city became part of the new state of Rhineland-Palatinate after the war.

     The chief industries within the Zweibrucken urban district are weaving, brewing and the manufacture of machinery, such as Terex cranes and bulldozers, and John Deere tractors, chicory, cigars, malt, boots, furniture and soap. Besides there are two museums, a local city museum and a natural history museum showing mainly fossils from the area.

Zweibrucken

Rhineland-Palatinate

Surnames

McVicker; Moreland; Pinnell; Scruggs and allied families

Bozarth; Peiffer; Quigley; Rhubart and allied families

Dellinger; Knecht; Pfeffer; Silar and allied families

Rimschweiler

Zweibrücken (Stadtmittle)

Coordinates: 49° 13′ 4″ N , 7° 22′ 32″ E 49 ° 13 '4 "N, 7 ° 22' 32" E

Dezimal Decimal: 49.217778 °, 7.375556 ° 49.217778 °, 7.375556

See Zweibrucken below

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Susanna Margaretta Forster Born born here 06 Jan 1671/72.  The following children of Johann George Bracher and Susanna Margaretta Forster Born were born here between 1704 and 1715: Catharina, Sara Margaretha; Peter Bernhard; Hans Peter; Maria Sophia;  Magdalena; and Susan Kunigunde. 

Rimschweiler first found in records around 1200 as Rimeswilre  Documents of 1298 also identify the hamlet as Heidelbingerhof. Through out history it has always been a part of  Zweibrucken.

Zweibrucken

Rhineland-Palatinate

List of Localities

The red star in the map at the left designates the

location of the seat of government for this district.

Source: MapQuest

The list below will assist in your research regarding the matching of your ancestors birth, marriage, death dates and in what locality of this county these events may have occurred.  Source:  Wikipedia

Bubenhausen;   Ernstweiler;   Ixheim;   Mittlebach;   Mittlebach-Hengetbach;   Morsbach;   Neideraurbach; Oberauerbach;   Rimschweiler;   Stadtmitte (Zweibrucken);   Wattweiler

Zweibrucken

Rhineland-Palatinate

Website Resources

·         Website & Webpages We Like

·         Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

·         Free Genealogy Search Help For Google

·        Rootsweb.com - Localities

·        Genealogy.com: Places/Geographic, Europe

·        Cyndi's List - Germany / Deutschland

Zweibrucken

Rhineland-Palatinate

Image Gallery

During our research we have collected images and photographs that are of general interest to a variety of localities.  Some of them are presented on this website because we believe they tend to provide the reader with additional information which may aid in the understanding of our ancestors past lives.

Email

Pony Express:

Tom
27 Christopher Dr.
Burton, NB E2V3H4
Canada

Email

Snail mail:

Fred
889 Dante Ct.
Mantua, NJ 08051

USA