Veit Bach


Vitus "Veit" Bach was a baker and miller who, according to Johann Sebastian Bach, founded the Bach family, which became one of the most important families in Western musical history. Veit's son, , was the grandfather of Johann Ambrosius Bach, J.S. Bach's father, and therefore Johann Sebastian's great-great-grandfather. There are other theories which hold that a different Veit Bach who died before 1578 in Erfurt was the father of Johann/Hans, and was thus Johann Sebastian's great-great-grandfather.
Evading religious persecution in the Kingdom of Hungary, then under the control of the staunchly Roman Catholic Habsburgs, Bach, being a Protestant, settled in Wechmar, a village in the German state of Thuringia. His descendants continued to live there until Christoph Bach, grandfather of J. S. Bach, moved to Erfurt to take up a position as municipal musician or Stadtpfeifer. Bach's son Johannes Bach studied music with the town's head piper.