German in Napoleon's army

[greyingrey]

I'm trying to help an American friend with this one. We've found the birth details of their German ancestor (he later emigrated to the US), but the family story is that inbetween he was conscripted into/joined Napoleon's army. Is there any way we can check this out & where should we look ?

All help gratefully received

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Greyingrey,

first step is to give all the details your friend knows: names, dates, places (even the "family story" versions )

regards,
Bob

[Hackstaple]

Napoleon's armies had huge numbers of foreign mercenaries. You can read about it:

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/web2.airmail.net/napoleon/infantry_Napoleon_3.htm#frenchintroforeign

[greyingrey]

Thank you both very much. His name was Anton Schmitz (sorry about the Schmitz) & he was born on 10 Sep 1785 in Kell near Andernach (in today's Rheinland Pfalz) The family story says that he fought for Napoleon in the 1812 Russian campaign & was in Blücher's troops at Waterloo. His first child was born in 1820. He was a Catholic

We've got the details of a book someone has recommended about troops returning to that area, so I'm going to see if I can ferret that out at any German bookshops on the internet

[greyingrey]

I haven't been able to find the book via Amazon de/Abe Books de (anyone know of any other booksellers who might be able to help ?), although they do have other titles by the same author. But I've found that he's in charge of the archives at Speyer (he's Joachim Kermann), so I'll try & get in touch with him once the holidays have ended

[blodwen]

Hallo Greyingrey,

you could look at these websites:

 www.zvab.com

 www.booklooker.de

 www.bookfinder.com

Viv

[greyingrey]

Thanks a lot, Viv

[schmitzjo]

Hi Greyingrey,
Your American friend may be a distant cousin of mine since my great x4 grandfather was Anton Schmitz. My great x3 grandfather was his son, Nicolaus Schmitz. I have never heard the family story about the Napoleonic Wars but am very curious if you have discovered anything further. My family and I are doing a bit of genealogical research of our own. I was actually trying to verify that the family is from Kell (my grandfather always said the family was from "Kiel" but perhaps that was a pronunciation thing). So a google search of Anton Schmitz and Kell led me to your post. Any information you could share that you have dug up would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
J. Schmitz