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Question:My grandmother was telling me a little bit about my heritage and she told me that I have ancestors from a country that doesn't even exist anymore. It was between France and Germany but I can't find it and I don't know how to spell it.
It sounds like "El-Sass-Ler-Rain" Can anybody help me?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: My grandmother was telling me a little bit about my heritage and she told me that I have ancestors from a country that doesn't even exist anymore. It was between France and Germany but I can't find it and I don't know how to spell it.
It sounds like "El-Sass-Ler-Rain" Can anybody help me?

True Germany and France did fight over it and each controlled it from time to time, but it was briefly independent after World War 1.

To find out more about Alsace -Lorraine visit follow the links below. Some include maps of the area. If you want to look for potential family members there are web forums for Alsace -Lorraine on both ancestry.com and rootsweb.com that might be helpful. Religious records might be even more helpful. Anyway good Luck.

Alsace Lorraine. It's on the eastern border of France, bordering Germany.

Alsace Lorraine
in German:
Elsa?-Lothringen

I don't believe it was ever an independent country. The French & Germans both claimed it, probably still do. At various times it was part of one or the other, since WWII part of France.

Alsace Lorraine was created when Charlemagne's empire was divided among his three grandsons. Lothar got the middle part, which was unfortunate both for him and the people living there, as the other two promptly began a series of wars to gain control. These wars didn't really end until 1945, 1100 years later. There is a famous short story, a pro-French propaganda piece about Alsace Lorraine, "The Last Class In French", from 1871.