The Origin of the Schuliens

My mother's mother was Mary Bernadine Schulien.  Everyone called her "Bernie."  She was the dearest, and one of the funniest, wisest women I have ever met.  Her parents were of German ancestry, though both had been born in this country.  Currently I am working on her father Joseph's family, the Schuliens.  Joseph was the youngest son of Mathias Schulien and Mary Petry. Their other children had been born in Germany. Mathias came from a large family - his parents were Mathias Schulien and Elizabeth Jung, and about half of their descendants came to the United States in the mid 1800s.  

When I began my research into the family, I knew almost nothing about them.  In fact, my mother didn't say much about her German heritage, preferring to believe she was really French.  Since the Schuliens came from a small town in Saarland, which borders the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, and since that territory went back and forth several times between France and Germany, she may not have been wrong.  But I believe her grandparents spoke German, not French, and today the town of Losheim is most definitely in Germany.

Slowly and methodically, over the past several years, I have been trying to put together the Schulien family tree.  I have found many branches in the United States, and have been in email and telephone contact with one Schulien descendant in Losheim. Last year, I visited Losheim and met several other Schulien descendants, including a cousin named Janine.  Janine showed me something I had been trying to get my hands on for years, a two volume set of books, written by her grandfather, tracing all the families of Losheim from the early 1700s.  The books are no longer in print and while Janine was all too eager to copy relevant pages of the books for me, it wasn't the same as having the books at my fingertips. So when she sent me an email a couple of months ago saying she had located a set of the books for me, I was thrilled.  She sent them to me and I have been filling in gaps in the family tree ever since.

At the same time, I have been making contact with Schuliens in the United States. I have sent letters and emails, and made phone calls.  Those contacts led to other contacts, and I have been able to gather more information, documents and photographs from many Schulien descendants.  Two of them even live close to me and we have been fortunate to be able to meet in person.

One thing that has eluded me, however, is the knowledge of where the Schuliens might have come from prior to their time in Losheim.  The two books I have only begin with the early 1700s, and I have been told that there are no organized records prior to that.  However, my cousin Janine recently contacted a former colleague of her late grandfather and asked if she had any information on where the Schuliens might have come from originally.  The colleague has sent her some information on this matter and after Janine translates it, she will pass it on to me.

Maybe I will find out that the Schuliens always lived in the area of Losheim, or maybe I will find out that, as my mother believed, they originally came from France.  Either way, I am hoping the new information will solve another mystery.  My mother is deceased now, but I keep thinking how thrilled she would be to share in all my discoveries and learn things about her family she never knew.