Ulmbach, Hesse, Germany

Date: 14 May 2023 [unknown]
Location: Ulmbach, Steinau an der Straße, Main-Kinzig-Kreis, Hesse, Germany
Surnames/tags: Ulmbach German_Roots

Germany project page|Germany Regions Team Page|

Contents 1 Contents 1.1 Helpful Links 1.2 Neighboring Villages within or neighboring Maria Himmelfahrt Catholic Parish 1.3 Photos 1.4 History

Contents

Helpful Links

For anyone with ancestral ties in Fort Wayne and Allen County Indiana, there is likely one or more of your ancestors from Ulmbach, Kurhessen. Many families from there settled in the Fort Wayne area in the middle 1800s. Ulmbach today is within the municipality of Steinau an der Strasse in the Main-Kinzig district of Hesse, Germany.

The Wikitree Category Page for Ulmbach might be helpful to use as an index of individuals that you might be searching: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Ulmbach%2C_Hessen

There are many others that appear in the church records who do not have profiles in Wikitree, so that list is not inclusive of all the former residents. The original Catholic Church records can be found (in Latin and German) at Matricula Online:

https://data.matricula-online.eu/en/deutschland/fulda/ulmbach-mariae-himmelfahrt/

To find it in Germany on a map, open up OpenStreetMap, many of the neighboring villages mentioned in the records can be found near by: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/50.3667/9.4167

Neighboring Villages within or neighboring Maria Himmelfahrt Catholic Parish

Some of these might be newer communities, but most show up in the church records, sometimes with spelling variations.

• Elisabethenhof, distance: 1.7 km or 1.1 mi.
• Wannhof, distance: 1.7 km  or 1.1 mi.
• Sarrod, distance: 2.5 km  or 1.6 mi.
• Ürzell, distance: 2.6 km  or 1.6 mi.
• Neustall, distance: 3.3 km  or 2.0 mi.
• Kressenbach, distance: 3.3 km  or 2.1 mi.
• Rabenstein, distance: 3.4 km  or 2.1 mi.
• Klesberg, distance: 3.7 km  or 2.3 mi.
• Unterullrichsberg, distance: 3.8 km  or 2.4 mi.
• Fleschenbach, distance: 4.1 km  or 2.5 mi.
• Rebsdorf, distance: 4.1 km  or 2.6 mi.
• Oberullrichsberg, distance: 4.3 km  or 2.7 mi.
• Ziegelhütte, distance: 4.9 km  or 3.0 mi.
• Breitenbach, distance: 4.9 km  or 3.0 mi.
• Kerbersdorf, distance: 4.9 km  or 3.0 mi.
• Schönhof, distance: 5.0 km  or 3.1 mi.

Photos

Ulmbach, Germany from the hillside, in 2018

Inside Maria Himmelfahrt Catholic Church in Ulmbach Germany. The church was rebuilt where the older one once stood. The baptismal font on the left side of the photo came from the original church.

History

A translation from Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmbach_(Steinau_an_der_Stra%C3%9Fe)

According to a chronicle, the place name is said to be derived from the old German ula = pot or ulner = potter. Documents state that as early as 1324 pots in Ulmbach were sold to the monastery in Schluechtern. Ulmbach was first mentioned in a document in 1253. [4] Due to its location in the Bergwinkel, the area around Ulmbach was already traversed by the Celts (Milseburg near Fulda) and Germans.

In 1409 the Mariä Himmelfahrt Church in Ulmbach was first mentioned as a parish church. Various feuds between the 14th and 16th centuries made life difficult for people in and around Ulmbach, causing numerous small settlements around Ulmbach to disappear. At the beginning of the 18th century, many Ulmbach families (Böß, Heyd, Kohlmännin, Söhn) relocated to Hungary (Szederkény and Himesháza) due to the great domestic need.

In 1810 the village of Ulmbach was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. In 1834 the population was 1,221. In 1848 the bourgeois revolution also spread to Ulmbach. 85 "rioters" shoot, riot and declare the spirits tax abolished. The second major wave of emigration, this time towards America, began in 1864. From Bremerhaven and Hamburg, the people of Ulmbach (e.g. Ochs, Herber, Lauer, Nußbaum) went to their new home. The First World War began in Ulmbach, as in almost all places in the German Empire, with the ringing of the bells on July 31, 1914. By 1918, 51 Ulmbach residents had died in the war.

In 1932 the National Socialist era began, and unfortunately the persecution of the Jews did not stop at Ulmbach. In 1905 there were still 57 Jews living in Ulmbach, in 1938 only 12 and after the Second World War there were no more Jewish residents.

In the Reichstag election on March 5, 1933, there was no majority for the NSDAP in Ulmbach compared to the old Schluechtern district. Instead, the Center Party won.

93 people from Ulmbach never returned to their homeland after the Second World War. On March 31, 1945 (Easter Sunday), Ulmbach was occupied by the Americans without much fighting. 357 expellees initially found a home in Ulmbach, some stayed forever.