Travels with my Ancestors #24: The German Connection
This is one of a series of posts in which I explore stories of people from the past: individuals in my family tree. Up until recently I was researching and writing about my father’s side of the tree; now I am digging deep into the heritage of my mother’s ancestors. Mostly, these were people whose family beginnings were from England and Ireland, with one known exception.
You can read the first post about my mother’s German great-grandfather here.
Above: Scenes from Kirn, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, in September 2025.
My sister and I have just returned from a trip to Europe during which we spent a week in the Rhineland region of Germany. We travelled here hoping to learn something of our German ancestor’s homeland, before he emigrated to Australia in 1861. For me this kind of travel is less about family history research (think hours spent poring over old documents in archives) and more about stepping on the land on which my forebears had lived.
What did I know about Christian Übel* before travelling to his place of birth? Very little.
I knew he’d been baptised in 1838 in the Evangelische (Protestant) church in the small town of Kirn, west of Mainz in the Rhineland-Palatinate. Today, the town is medium-sized (about 8,500 residents). It lies in a valley between two rivers: the Nahe and the Hahnenbach, on the edge of the Hunsrück hills.
His father was a clothmaker in the town and the family lived in Haus 139 am Hahnenbach. His paternal grandfather had been a farmer. Christian was number four in a family of nine children; though two older brothers had died within six months of their birth, leaving Christian as the oldest surviving son.
I wondered what effect this loss of children, so common at the time, might have had on parents and siblings? Did Christian grow up in the shadow of his dead brothers? Or were they never discussed – did his parents believe it best to put those losses behind them and move on? There would be few families who had not endured the death of infants or children, in an era where accident or illness could suddenly and indiscriminately strike down a young life.
A Google map search showed that there is a neighbourhood, or municipal area called Hahnenbach, about 10 km to the northwest of Kirn itself. Was this where the family lived?
When he arrived in Sydney by steamer in 1861, Christian was a baker, but I don’t know when and where he obtained that trade and if he worked in a bakery or even had his own business, before leaving Germany.
I didn’t necessarily expect to find answers to these questions during the visit to Kirn, but I did hope to get a feeling for the town and its surroundings. This was certainly achieved during my brief time there.
To begin with, we paid a visit to the municipal History Library, to meet a man with whom I had previously exchanged emails about archival records that might be available. He had very kindly prepared a copy of Christian’s birth certificate and presented it to us. I was thrilled, as I had not seen a copy of this proof of Christian’s birth anywhere in the online databases I’d searched from Australia.
Another helpful person was an employee in the information booth in the main part of town, who provided a map and – crucially – the suggestion that the Übel family home was likely to have been located on one of the two streets that align the Hahnenbach river that runs through the centre of town. There is a ‘right’ and a ‘left’ Hahnenbachstraße, or Hahnenbach street, one of which would probably have been the location of ‘House 139’ where Christian was born, back in the 1830s.
What a gem of information! It provided my sister and I with a starting point, as we wandered up and down the two streets on either side of the narrow river. Nearly two hundred years ago, it was probably a quietly flowing stream; today it has been straightened and its sides built up with concrete, presumably to conrol the flow of water and as protection from flooding.
Above: The Hahnenbach river and its adjacent streets in Kirn.
It’s left and right streets appeared peaceful; a mix of old and newer housing. Not an especially affluent neighbourhood, but close to the old town, the town square, the Catholic and Protestant churches and Jewish synagogue. In the 1800s it may have played host to an array of tradespeople such as Christian’s father, the clothmaker.
From here, we found the Protestant church where Christian had been baptised in 1838. A solid, cream and red brick building with a tower that dates to the eleventh or twelfth century, it was cool and peaceful inside. We photographed the font where Christian’s small head had been wet with baptismal water; the high pulpit where the minister would have delivered his sermons each Sunday, and the decorative arched ceiling.
Above: the historic Protestant church in Kirn, where Christian Übel was baptised in 1838.
I love nothing more than ambling through a street and buildings where, many years in the past, people from my own past had walked. In that respect, my trip to Kirn was very satisfying. I came away with some sense of the place, and a feeling that I could now write a little more confidently about my great-great-great grandfather Christian and his place of origin.
Oh, and before we left Kirn, we went to an excellent local bakery and, in honour of our ancestor, purchased a very beautiful loaf of fresh, crusty German bread.
*In Australian records, Christian’s family name is spelled Uebel.
All photos by the author, September 2025.
Christian’s story will be continued in future Travels with My Ancestors posts.
If you are connected to the Australian Uebel family, I would love to hear from you!
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