Nearly 400 years ago, a young man decided to make his home in Nördlingen, a town within the territory of the Holy Roman Empire, modern day Bavaria. It was here that he became a citizen and butcher. However, his son, Johannes Arnoldt, had a different idea of where to call home and made his way south. He settled in Dettwiller, Alsace, another region of the Holy Roman Empire on the cusp of becoming part of the Kingdom of France at the end of the Franco-Dutch War. There, in 1680, he married the daughter of an innkeeper, and one might say ‘the rest is history.’ For hundreds of years his descendants owned and ran The Ox inn and throughout Alsace continued in the trade of innkeeping, which extended into the occupations of butcher, wine merchant, cooper, and farmer. But by the mid-19th century, that history began to change. As business owners, adventurers, emigrants, and risktakers, descendants of Johannes Arnoldt were met with many challenges. The stories within these pages reveal the losses they suffered, the survival of hardships, and how they rose from failures to find success, while one tragic tale tells of a singular rogue Arnold who led an infamous life so nefarious that it led to the murder of his own son. Some tales are shocking, while others reveal how these ancestors paved the way for a better life for descendants who are alive today. If you are one of those descendants, this is your story and your legacy.