The Materys first lived in Switzerland, then in Alsace in France.
The first of our Materys was born in Switzerland before 1640 and lived with his parents in the Basel area. He had a son, Nikolaus Matery, who was born around 1660.
Entries in the church records and archives prove that many Swiss emigrated to Alsace after 1649 as a result of the turmoil during and after the Thirty Years' War, including from the Basel and Bern region. Among them was Nikolaus Matery from the Basel region.
In 1648, Switzerland seceded from the German Empire in the "Peace of Westphalia". The resulting economic crisis triggered a peasant uprising in the cantons of Basel, Bern and Solothurn, which ended with the defeat of the peasants in 1653. This was presumably linked to the persecution of all "dissenters", which could have been the reason why Nikolai Matery also left his homeland. He probably professed the Reformed faith, as his first descendants appear in the church register of the Protestant parish (German Reformed Church) of Bischwiller in Alsace.
There, on February 2, 1705, Georg Matery from Basel married Anna Steiner from Bern.
His son Johann Georg * 1712 moved to Neewiller in Lower Alsace.
The generation after the next was again confronted with the turmoil of war. In the turbulent period following the French Revolution of 1790-1800, the revolutionaries took farms and houses from the citizens and distributed them to their supporters. Dispossessed and discouraged, former farmers and craftsmen now had to earn their living as day laborers and field workers.
Tempting offers from distant Russia therefore found an open ear. They promised large areas of good land on the Black Sea coast and, for example, exemption from duties and taxes and no compulsory military service.
In the summer of 1808, many people from Alsace made their way to New Russia. Among them was Johann Peter Matery * 1780 with his wife Katharina Sarbacher. Together with their children Caspar and Nikolaus, they left their home in Neeweiler with neighbors and friends.
After an arduous journey of around 2200 km, Johann Peter Matery and his family arrived in the Odessa region in 1808. He was assigned a farm in the Franzfeld colony in the Grossliebental district near Odessa on the Black Sea.
He must have been an efficient farmer, because in 1813 Peter already owned 9 horses, 13 cattle, 1 plow and 1 wagon.
We know a great deal about his son Caspar Matery. He was born in Alsace in 1805 and came to the Franzfeld colony with his parents and became a teacher.
On September 19, 1821, he signed a contract with the community as a schoolmaster. The community paid him 1 pud of wheat per family and three roubles per year (1 pud equals approx. 16 kg).
In 1823 Caspar married Katharina Zerr, whose parents also came from Neeweiler. Her nephew Anton Zerr * 1849 became a priest and later Bishop of Tiraspol.
The couple Caspar Matery had two children: Elisabeth * 1827 and Philipp * 1830.
Caspar moved with his family to Krasna in Bessarabia in 1843. The exact reason is not known, but it was probably because land became available there.
There he worked as a teacher again. The teacher's salary was meagre. The farmers were of the opinion that the cattle herder was more important to them and paid him a higher salary than the teacher.
In 1848 Kaspar wrote the Krasna community report, one of the most important documents about the early village.
The Materys achieved prosperity in Krasna, which at that time in Bessarabia was only possible through land ownership. Kaspar had taken over a "whole economy" in Krasna, which he passed on to his son Philipp. Philipp had two children: Peter and Christina.
A document has come down to us which proves that Peter Matery, born around 1853, was one of the few farmers who still owned a "whole farm" in 1871, i.e. around 65 hectares of land. Most of the other farms had been divided up among the heirs several times in the meantime.
Eduard Volk
Neuwied, April 2024
Eduard's ancestor is Klemens VOLK