Groh / Wohlfromm Family of Marlenheim

Mary's great-grandmother Marie Theresa Groh (b. 8 Dec 1875, Marlenheim) descends from farming families documented in Marlenheim and neighbouring Kirchheim across five generations, back to the 1790s (source: Holley Family Tree.ged). Christy's research shows her standing behind the counter of the Groh Brothers' store after the family emigrated to Idaho (Bovill / Sherwin), and lovingly calls her "your grandmother" — though the Ancestry pedigree places her as Mary's great-grandmother (source: Holley-family.pdf; Holley Family Tree.ged).

Relationship line: Mary → Patricia Ann Todd → Marie Anne Zagelow (grandmother) → Marie Theresa Groh (great-grandmother) (source: Holley Family Tree.ged).

The documented genealogy

Generations from Marie Groh upward (source: Holley Family Tree.ged; Holley-family.pdf):

• Marie Theresa Groh (great-grandmother) — b. 8 Dec 1875, Marlenheim; m. Herman Zagelow (recorded as b. 1858 "Alsace-Lorraine," but his line is almost certainly not Alsatian — see The Zagelow Branch (genealogical puzzle)); emigrated to the US, d. 1963 in Moscow, Idaho.
• Jean / Johann Groh (great-great-grandfather) — Marie's father, b. 18 Feb 1840 in Marlenheim (67282), Bas-Rhin, farmer.
• Adèle Wohlfrom (great-great-grandmother) — Marie's mother, b. 13 January 1846. The PDF birth certificate registers her at Kirchheim; the GED lists Marlenheim — see the note below.
• Jean Groh & Adèle Wohlfrom married 20 April 1868 in the Marlenheim town hall (source: Holley-family.pdf).
• François Joseph Groh & Anne Marie Schmitt (3rd-great-grandparents) — Jean's parents, both born in Marlenheim (b. 1796 and 1797; d. 1878 and 1879) (source: Holley Family Tree.ged).
• Laurent Wohlfrom & Thérèse Bernhard (3rd-great-grandparents) — Adèle's parents; Laurent b. ~1806 and d. 1850, both in Kirchheim (67240) (source: Holley Family Tree.ged).
• Recurring family surnames in the Marlenheim/Kirchheim records: Groh, Wohlfrom(m), Schmitt, Bernhard/Bernhart (source: Holley-family.pdf).

> Birthplace discrepancy (Adèle Wohlfrom): the GED gives her birthplace as Marlenheim, but the PDF's 1846 birth certificate was registered at Kirchheim, and her father Laurent Wohlfrom was both born and died in Kirchheim. The primary document favours Kirchheim; treat the GED's "Marlenheim" as a likely transcription of the family's later domicile.

The 1875-era records are written in Kurrent, the old German-language cursive — a reminder that Alsace was under German rule for stretches of this family's history (see Mary's Family History). All Bas-Rhin parish registers, état civil and the 1819–1885 censuses are digitized free at archives67.alsace.eu; the Cercle Généalogique d'Alsace (Strasbourg) can help transcribe Kurrent and holds ~997,000 act-transcriptions searchable on Geneanet (source: mary-heritiage-alsace.md). Records under ~100 years old are requested at the relevant mairie (Marlenheim, Kirchheim or Nordheim). See Mary's Alsace Heritage Research (source summary) for the full research plan.

The primary documents (transcribed)

The speaker-notes edition of Christy's presentation transcribes three civil-registry acts in full from the Archives départementales du Bas-Rhin (AD67), all freely digitized at archives.bas-rhin.fr (source: Holley-family-notes.pdf):

• Marie Groh's birth act — AD67, Marlenheim, Naissances 1873–1876, acte no. 46, registered 13 December 1875, daughter of Johann (Jean) Groh and Theresia née Wohlfromm; witnesses Frédéric Haueff and Johann Hoerter; mayor Hyppolite Zimmernig. The father's occupation is given here as day-labourer (Tagelöhner). The act is written in German Kurrent, because Alsace had been annexed by the German Empire in 1871 and civil records were kept in German until 1918 (source: Holley-family-notes.pdf).
• ⚠️ Date discrepancy: the birth act is dated 13 December 1875, but Ancestry and the GED record 8 December 1875. Christy's reading is that the family registered the birth a few days late — "perhaps a few days before they went to record the birth"; no baptism record was found online (source: Holley-family-notes.pdf). (One slide caption mistypes "11 December" — disregard that as a typo.)
• Adèle Wohlfrom's birth act — AD67, Kirchheim, Naissances 1843–1852, acte no. 1, born 30 January 1846 at three in the morning, daughter of Wohlfromm (the declarant, recorded as Florent/Lourent, age 28, farmer) and Thérèse Bernhart (age 27); witnesses François Antoine Wohlfromm (age 63, farmer — the infant's grandfather) and Bernhard Geiger (age 49). Because Alsace was French in 1846, this act is in French — a vivid contrast with Marie's German 1875 act (source: Holley-family-notes.pdf).
• Jean Groh × Adèle Wohlfrom marriage act — AD67, Marlenheim town hall, 20 April 1868 at four in the evening (mayor N. Verdin). It records Jean Groh, 28, b. 28 Feb 1840, farmer, son of Joseph Groh (72, farmer) and Anne Marie Schmitt (68); and Adèle Wohlfrom, 22, b. Kirchheim, maidservant, daughter of the late Laurent Wohlfrom (carpenter, of Kirchheim) and Thérèse Bornhard (46). The four witnesses include Joseph Groh (33, brother of the groom) and Michel Jung (61, uncle of the bride); the act cites the Napoleonic Code governing the marriage (source: Holley-family-notes.pdf).

> Reconciling Adèle's dates and her father's record. The two new documents sharpen — and partly contradict — the GED. (1) Birthday: the birth act says 30 January 1846, whereas the GED and the 1868 marriage act say 13 January 1846; the primary birth act is the stronger source for the day. (2) Her father: the birth act puts Wohlfromm at age 28 in 1846 (so b. ~1818) and the marriage act calls him a carpenter — both at odds with the GED's "Laurent Wohlfrom, b. ~1806, d. 1850." His first name appears variously as Laurent / Florent / Jean Claude across the records, and the marriage act (1868) describes him as already deceased. Treat the GED's birth/death years for him as unverified pending a direct look at the Kirchheim death register (source: Holley-family-notes.pdf; Holley Family Tree.ged).

The family address in Marlenheim

The 1851 census places the Groh household — the family of François Joseph Groh, with his young son Jean (Marie's father, then ~11) — at house no. 210 on "Mittel Strass" — literally "Middle Street," today Rue du Milieu in Marlenheim (source: Holley-family.pdf). Christy's research notes this runs parallel to Rue du Général-de-Gaulle, just north of the parish Église Sainte-Richarde, in the oldest and densest part of the old village — a walkable spot to stand on the family's ground (source: Holley-family.pdf). The 1851 sequence lists houses 210–213 together, placing the Groh home in the central block of Rue du Milieu — roughly the ~100–200 m stretch between the church and the junctions with Rue de l'Église / Rue des Jardins (source: Holley-family-notes.pdf). For graves, note the Marlenheim cemetery was moved north of the village in 1822, so 19th-century Groh/Schmitt graves are in that northern cemetery, not the churchyard (source: mary-heritiage-alsace.md).

Visiting — what to see

Christy's research pairs the genealogy with sites in and around Marlenheim (source: Holley-family.pdf):

• Église Sainte-Richarde (Catholic parish church) and the 18th-century town hall and castle
• Renaissance residences and half-timbered houses in the old centre
• Marlenberg hill — Romanesque Chapel and Stations of the Cross, with views over the Alsatian vineyards and Strasbourg Cathedral
• Day-trip range from the family villages: Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle, Château d'Isenbourg & Spa, Eguisheim, Riquewihr

Related pages

• Mary's Family History — the wider ancestry
• Mary's Alsace Heritage Research (source summary) — the heritage-travel research report (genealogy plan, food/wine, logistics)
• The Zagelow Branch (genealogical puzzle) — the separate, probably-not-Alsatian Zagelow puzzle
• Couronne d'Or (the "Golden Crown")
• Marlenheim
• Kirchheim
• Nordheim
• Steinklotz (Grand Cru, Marlenheim)
• Le Cerf (Marlenheim)
• Alsace Wine Route