Many French families bear names similar to the Swiss Hauris, but they have a different origin. Noms de Famille, an amateur effort, lists the following: Arouet, a name immortalized by Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 1694-1778), but now extinct. It might be a variant of Arrouet, which is undoubtedly a diminutive of arrou, which means a watering or feeding trough. Auer, a German or...
In the ancient world, it was widely believed that swans sing only once in their lifetimes, just before they die. Socrates and Plato both mentioned this belief. Geoffrey Chaucer alluded to it about 1374. Hence, the phrase swan song, meaning a person’s final labor. This belief led to an association between swans and prophecy, because swans were thought to predict their own deaths. The swan is...
There was a Hauri family at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, in Baden-Württemberg in the 13th century. The city belonged to the von Urach family, who were Counts of Freiburg. In 1299 a war broke out between the city and Count Egino II over the issue of taxes. The burghers fired on Schlossberg with catapults. The Count called upon his brother-in-law, Konrad von Lichtenberg, Bishop of Strasbourg, for help. In...
Heinrich Vecht (c1773-c1822) was living in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania in 1820. He was a German, but his ancestry is otherwise unknown. He might have been a son of Peter Weicht, who immigrated from Silesia in 1753. His descendants anglicized their surname to Weight. Lineal Genealogy Heinrich (Henry) Vecht (c1773-c1822), a farmer in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Henry Weight (1811-1896), a...
Joséphine Tascher de La Pagerie The Beauharnais were an ancient French family of pretended nobility. Through their relationship with Napoléon, they rose to high rank in French and Russian society. They descend from Guillaume Beauharnais, who lived in Orléans, France in the 14th century. The name means “good harness”. François de Beauharnais, marquis de La Ferté Beauharnais (1714-1800), served as...