Notes for Mathias Ahles
Exerpts from the book, "All I Know About the Roots and Shoots of the Joseph and Elizabeth Nett Ahles Family" by Antonette Ahles, OSF, 1992 (distributed to family):
The name AHLES is Latin and means wings or the winged one. It may be a romantic notion to believe that it goes back to Roman times when one of Caesar's generals, who conquered quickly and surely, was nicknamed ALES (the Germans inserted an H into many names and words). The Ahles family came from the Trier region. This area lies in the Mozelle Valley with the City of Trier located on the Mozelle (Mosel) River, a tributary of the Rhine. The area was also known as the Rhine Palatineate (Rhein Pfalz).
The Ahles family did not own land (in Trier) although they were free people (not serfs). We know that they were farmers, most probably tenant farmers, and the land farmed by Mathias and Margaretta Ahles was insufficient to support all of their family for the future. (This is probably the reason they moved to America.)
The church in which the members of the Ahles family were baptized is located in the village of Preischeid, about 4 miles west of Trier and 2 miles east of the present Luxembourg border. The Mathias and Margaretta Ahles family lived on a farm uphill from the church in a location which was called Obersgehen (literally, going up). Since the Ahles name does not appear in the village records of deeds, which go back to the 16th century, we know that they were not landowners. The church has records of the family and Ahles names appear on grave stones in the cemetery. The last Ahles to live in Preischeid, Peter Ahles, died in 1981.
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