The End of the Wygand Brack Family
(Kinda)
Wygand Brack, Joachim Meyer’s most prominent student and fechtmeister of many titles, struggled with a long-term illness, eventually resulting in his death in 1583.
“Mister Alms reports that the Almighty took the late Weigand Brack from here. Necessity requires that someone else gets ordered to replace him. Especially since this service has been done in an awful manner, due to his infirmity. Alms and the council members shall inform the guilds, that one should apply for it.”
Brack had a son, however, also named Wygand (who I will refer to as Jr from here on). Jr was likely around 13 at the time of Brack’s death, as in 1591 he married Barbara Kraucher at St-Pierre-le-Vieux when around 20-25 was a typical age of marriage. He and Barbara would have a son named Wygandus baptized on 7/8/1593 in this same church. Barbara would also be noted as a godparent for a Daniel Schneider in 1595, written as “Barbara Wigand Brack’s wife” in the note.
However, the happy family would not last long.
In 1598 Barbara Kraucher marries Jorg Zigler at the St-Pierre-le-Jeune parish on the 25th of April. This signals that Jr has died by this time, likely in 1597 or 1596 depending on mourning period time, leaving only Wigandus Brack as the last of the Brack family to possibly exist into the 1600s.
However, as Wigandus was so young at the time of the remarriage (about 4 years 9 months) it is likely that his name would be changed to Zigler. It is also possible that his first name could be changed as well due to his age.
I have not been able to find any records of a ‘Wigandus Zigler’ in any of the indexes for the council of XXI or XV records, and sadly many of the “Z” name tables within the typically amazing parish records are either data deficient, skipping decades at a time, or massively damaged.
I think it is fairly safe to say that this 1598 remarriage record essentially bookends the life of the Brack family, serving as a stop sign for researchers looking for new material generated by these individuals. Thus ends the story of Wygand Brack, with another young death…