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This is a website dedicated to history of Ganz family.  Allso spelled: Ganss or Ganß

If this subject relates to you please contact me at: patrosza@yahoo.com

1647 from the district Winterburg

Wendel Ganss is mentioned with house and family in Pferdsfeld.

The first Ganß family members came to the towns Pferdsfeld and the neighbour town Winterburg approximately in 1670.

One was Liborius Gans and Carl Ganß from Luik (=Lüttich, Liege´), today in Belgium.

They called them “the Wallonies”, what indicates they spoke French and not Flamish.

Johann Nikolaus Ganß (born 1694 Pferdsfeld Palatinate)

We do not have church records for Nikolaus Ganß because of the French-war and the lost of the church books in the village.

Maybe his father was Johann Tillman Ganß, born 1659, but no reference to the town where he was born.

Johann Nikolaus was the father of Johann Gabriel Ganß senior.

From  Pferdsfeld Palatinate to Schumlau Galicia - 1784

1774, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa issued the first settlement patent which gave immigrants permission to settle in the cities and towns. In 1781, Emperor Joseph II issued the second patent; it allowed foreign settlers also to settle in the country and provided for religious tolerance of Protestants.  As a consequence, thousands of families, mostly from the Palatinate, immigrated to Galicia and settled in newly founded German-speaking communities in the country or as craftsmen in the cities.

Johann Valentin Ganz is born 1767 in Pferdsfeld in Palatinate

As a seventeen years old boy he emigrated with his father Johann Gabriel Ganß senior (born 1721) in July 1784 from Pferdsfeld to Galicia, his mother (Catharina Margarethe Brückner from Burgsponheim, born 1739)

and a few family members where also there on the convoy.  Settlers traveled over several months and eventualy settled in Schumlau and Neu Chrusno.