But before we talk of him, we have to talk of the 19th August 1707 a black day for our town: 125 houses and a few communal buildings burnt down in a big fire, among them were three houses of the Haeberlen family, namely the house of the court-assistant Hans Jacob, the one of his brother Hannss Ulrich, who was cooper and baker, and the one of their uncle Hannss Jacob. Also the houses of the related families Burkhardt and Bischoff burnt down. The exact places where these houses of our ancestor was supposedly in the same street as the houses which later belonged to his sons Fritz and George. These three houses were destroyed in the fire of 1884 and were rebuilt slightly differently.

We have very few written sources about our ancestor Johann Georg but we know a lot more about him and his wife than we do about former generations.

He was married to his niece Eva Christina, the daughter of the town-messenger Burkert or Burckhardt. The work of a town-messenger in that time was comparable to that of a beadle+ or summoner later. This man had 10 children, of which 3 died already as young children. Although often a marriage between relatives is not very favorable for the mental and physical sanity of the children, in this case all seven children grew up to be acceptable human being.

Enormous political and cultural changes took place during Johann Georg`s lifetime (1778-1862). The "Heilige Roemische Reich Deutscher Nation"++ came to an inglorious end in 1806. Wuerttemberg became a kingdom.

+ messenger (CFH)
++ Literal translation=Holy Roman Goverment German Nation (CFH)