Walking down family history lane
Visiting a historic city in the heart of Europe can be very exciting, because the stone witnesses of past centuries have a lot to tell. This is especially true of Würzburg with its eventful history.
Photo: Michael Mautner
But it can be even more interesting and personal when you can connect your family history to However, it becomes even more interesting and personal when you can connect your family history with Würzburg, as Kelly and James did. They asked me to show them the places where their ancestors lived in Würzburg, and after some research, we were able to begin our family history tour in the city center.
We spent wonderful and moving hours together in a beautiful city that opened up to us in a whole new and different way through this personal approach to family history.
One of the ancestors of the Hemmert family, Johann Carl Hemmert, emigrated to the USA in 1870. He was born in Würzburg in1850 and baptized in St. Peter and Paul Church. In 1864, we were able to find him in the documents as an orphaned tailor’s apprentice. As a very talented young man, he received a scholarship for “poor students who distinguished themselves through diligence and morality.”
His mother, Anna Hemmert, was born in 1815 and baptized in the parish of Hauger. When her son Johann was born, she did not name a father. Her mother, Helena Hemmert, with maiden name Ledermann, had been a widow since around 1805. She also did not name a father for her child when her daughter Anna was born. Helena Hemmert died of exhaustion in 1839, shortly before her 67th birthday. Anna Hemmert died in 1863, one day after her 48th birthday, from an infection in a so-called “Siechenhaus” (infirmary), the “Ehehalterhaus” (hospital for infectious diseases) outside the city.
We were able to transfer the historical house numbers, which are known from baptism and death certificates in the Würzburg church records and from resident registration forms in the Würzburg city archives, into a table. This allowed us to assign them to their current locations and ensure that we had identified the correct places.
We met at the train station and walked through Würzburg in roughly the order shown in the table. We had marked the addresses in gray on historical maps. Würzburg was almost completely destroyed during World War II, as a 1945 damage assessment map from the city planning office impressively shows. As a result, very few buildings remained at least partially intact.
Source: MDZ 
Thank you, Kelly and James, for giving me the opportunity to accompany you to these places and guide you on your walk through your family’s history. I really enjoyed our day together in Würzburg! (Photo: Corley-Hemmert)
Michael Mautner – Genealogy Mautner-Frank, in September 2025