Marktbreit - Home to the Mandel Family

Our ancestor, Johann Mandel, was born in the pretty little village of Marktbreit. On our visit to Germany in the summer of 2016 we visited Marktbreit and made sure to take plenty of photos as we walked around the town.

This is a photo of the entrance into the town as well as the outside of the city wall and tower.

You can see it is a beautiful little Franconian village looking through the entranceway.

This photo is looking back at the entrance tower from inside the village.

A beautiful building trimmed in yellow and the tower of the Lutheran church off to the right.

 This is S. Nikolai Lutheran Church

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The beautiful old doors into St. Nikolai

Narrow cobblestone streets lead to homes where the citizens of Marktbreit reside. Unfortunately, we do not know the home in which the Mandel family lived.

St. Ludwig Catholic Church which is most likely the church that Johann was baptized in.

The entrance doors to St. Ludwig's. We caught my cousin Sabine's husband Dieter in the photo. 

This is the tower of the Lutheran Church from a different angle.

This sign indicates that the cemetery is located behind this wall.

More beautiful old doors that lead into the walled cemetery.

 The next couple of photos are of the cemetery where our ancestors surely were buried in the past.

The village has beautiful architecture and is so clean.

Water still separates the city from the outside wall which was built to keep marauders out during the Medieval time period.

Marktbreit was a beautiful Medieval village that is well preserved. 

Johann Mandel

Johann Mandel was born on January 13, 1831 in the pretty village of Marktbreit, Germany. He was baptized in the Catholic Church on January 31, 1831.

His birth record in the Catholic Archives lists only his mother who is Dorothea Mandel, presumably of Marktbreit.

Parish records also reveal that Johann was married twice. On July 13, 1859 in Marktbreit, Johann married Maria Ursula Windfelder. We do not know if any children were born to this marriage or when Maria died. It is likely that Johann brought children with him into his second marriage.

Ten years later, Johann married a second time on October 9, 1869 to our ancestor, Anna Margaretha Kinzinger (1830 - 1910) from Huttenheim. They were married in St. Peter's Church in nearby Wurzburg. Anna was 39 years old when she married Johann, and quite possibly may have been a widow.

Franz Xaver Grunewald (Johann's grandson) spoke of him in his memoirs 'Rotlauf.' He said that Johann was a musician and a schostermeister (shoemaker). The records we were able to obtain from the Catholic Archives in Wurzburg also list his occupation as a shoemaker.

We are uncertain of what city Johann died in, but his death was in 1886 - 24 years prior to Anna's death.

Anna Margaretha Kinzinger

Anna Margaretha Kinzinger 

was born on April 2, 1830 in the Bavarian village of Huttenheim, Germany, which is about 322 kilometers southwest of Marktbreit where she lived as an adult.

Anna Margaretha was born to Andreas Kinzinger and Katharina Hannewacker. Sadly, she was only 24 years old when her father died.

Fifteen years after her father's death, she married Johann Mandel (1831 - 1886) of Marktbreit on October 9, 1869 in St. Peter's Church in nearby Wurzburg.  According to the parish records, Joseph and Andreas Wagner, custodes in the church, were their witnesses. How they met is a mystery to us since they did not live in the same area. She was 39 when she married and very likely may have been a widow with children.

One year after their marriage, Maria 'Rettel' Mandel (1870 - 1925) - our ancestor -  was born in Marktbreit. We do not know if there were any other children born after Maria.

After her husband, Johann, died, Anna moved to Frickenhausen to live with Wendel and Maria until her death in 1910.