Origins

Two families — the Volga German Hermans and the German Catholic Bosers — whose paths met in Saskatchewan through the 1948 marriage of Alexander “Alec” Herman and Mary C. (Boser) Herman. The interactive Family Tree shows their descendants; this page traces the lines that came before.

confirmed independent record documented family records traditional family memory date conflict sources disagree unproven link

The Herman Line

Volga German — from Marienthal, Saratov region, Russia

The Hermans descend from the Volga Germans, ethnic Germans invited by Catherine the Great to settle the Volga River valley in the 1760s. They built Catholic villages such as Marienthal, holding to their language and faith, before emigrating to Canada in 1908.

Frank Herman (~1830) traditional Born in Marienthal, Saratov. Married Catherine Boxler.
Catherine Boxler traditional Of Alsatian origin (Johannesberg near Metz); her family migrated to the Volga region around 1764–1765.
John Herman (Senior) (1857–?) traditional Born in Marienthal. Migrated to Canada in 1908; homesteaded near St. Walburg, Saskatchewan, in 1910.
John Herman (Junior) (1891–1974) documented Born in Marienthal. Married first Catherine Ortman (1894–1923), then Maria (Boser) Herman (1906–1984) — the memoir author.
Alexander “Alec” Herman (b. 1925, St. Walburg, SK) death year disputed Son of John Jr. and his first wife Catherine Ortman. A farmer in Saskatchewan. Death year unresolved — sources give 2003 and 2012; left open pending a primary record.

Two women named Boser–Herman — not the same person. Maria (Boser) Herman (1906–1984), born in Towner, North Dakota, was John Jr.’s second wife and Alec’s stepmother. She is the author of the family memoirs (signed “Maria Herman,” 1966). She is a different person from Mary C. (Boser) Herman (b. 1921, Reward, SK) — Alec’s wife, from the Boser line below — who did not write the memoirs.

In 1948, Alexander “Alec” Herman married Mary C. (Boser) Herman — uniting the Herman and Boser lines and raising six children: Doreen, Audrey, Bernice, Marilyn, Larry, and Allan.

The Boser Line

German Catholic — Germany → Saskatchewan

The Bosers were part of the German Catholic migration that settled the Reward district of west-central Saskatchewan (St. Joseph’s Colony) in the early 1900s.

Michael Boser (1820–1898) m. Regina Hoffman (d. 1878) unproven link Remembered as early Boser ancestors. The connection to Joseph Boser is probable but not proven — parish records and photographs suggest close kinship, but the exact relationship is undocumented, so this generation is shown but not asserted as a direct line.
Joseph Boser (b. 1894 / 1883 · d. 1980s / 1965) date conflict Immigrated to Canada; homesteaded in Saskatchewan. Dates disagree: the Holy Rosary Catholic Cemetery (Reward, SK) records 1894–198?, while family documents give 1883–1965. Both are shown pending a primary record.
Anna (Thalheimer) Boser (b. 1898 / 1887 · d. 1981 / 1977) date conflict Wife of Joseph; said to have raised 17 children. Cemetery records 1898–1981; family documents give 1887–1977.
Mary C. (Boser) Herman (b. 1921, Reward, SK) documented Daughter of Joseph and Anna. Married Alexander “Alec” Herman in 1948 and is the mother of their six children. Died 2014. (Not the memoir author — see the note above; the memoirs were written by her mother-in-law, Maria (Boser) Herman.)

About these records: badges mark how well each fact is established. “Confirmed” means an independent source (e.g. a cemetery transcription); “documented” comes from family records; “traditional” rests on family memory; “date conflict” means sources disagree and both are kept; “unproven link” marks a relationship not yet documented. As primary records (birth, death, parish, or census) are found, these can be upgraded — the underlying data file notes each conflict for easy correction.