Hessen, or Hesse, is a state in Germany perhaps best known today for the city of Frankfurt, a major financial, business & transportation hub, home to Germany’s busiest airport. The European Central Bank is headquartered in Frankfurt.

Historically, Hessen is a cultural region that once included the Rhenish Hesse, now part of Rheinland-Pfalz. After different rulers & territories, Hessen gained its independence in the 1200s & became a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1567, it was divided into four: Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Rheinfels, and Hesse-Marburg. These lands became divided over religion, as well as disputes such as the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), when Darmstadt fought with the Emperor & Kassel allied with Sweden & France. Eventually Napoleon took control of Hessen lands, while parts were rolled into Prussia. In 1946, the modern state of Hessen was born.

Parishes of origin for my family from Hessen include:

I have one immigrant ancestor from Hessen, specifically the former Hesse-Kassel:

• Nicolaus BECKER, native of Flieden Parish
  • Immigrated in 1837, approximate age 30

Nicolaus BECKER arrived in America in 1837, according to Hessian Immigrants, Book II: Immigrants from Hesse-Kassel. He arrived with 3 relatives, and he was a native of Stork. There is an Oberstork & Unterstork, with Stork next to them both, belonging to the Parish of Flieden in Hesse-Kassel. Parish records for Flieden’s Catholic Church, St. Goar, were digitized by Matricula Online during the COVID-19 pandemic in Feb. 2021, and Nicolaus Becker’s baptism record was found, confirming his birthplace as Oberstork, his birthdate as Nov. 25, 1807, and his parents as Julius BECKER & Margaretha SCHÖPPNER. Many thanks to genealogist Gary GAERTNER, who has interest in Flieden Parish, who first surfaced this record to me in Oct. 2019. After a thorough examination of the Flieden church records, including compiling siblings for Nicolaus and a larger pedigree, I can confirm it is indeed my Nicolaus BECKER. His paternal grandmother’s maiden name SENG shows up in our AncestryDNA matches, and I see the common ancestors with them; we also match descendants of Nicolaus’ brother Johann Adam BECKER, who stayed in Oberstork, on MyHeritage.

I’ve been working on a bit of a One-Place Study for Flieden to piece together all of the families of the parish. You can find the results of those efforts on this page. There was one reason in particular I wanted to dive so deeply into Flieden’s records and sort out the families:

Nicolaus BECKER’s godfather Johann Adam BECKER was a “Cauponis” from Magdlos, a neighboring village. I learned that Cauponis means Innkeeper in Latin, and also that many relatives & ancestors of Nicolaus were also innkeepers, including his great-grandfather Valentin GROB. So I wanted to piece together the various innkeeping families of Flieden Parish and their inter-relationships, and there are many. It’s worth noting that the Via Regia, an old Holy Roman Empire road that stretches from Russia all the way to Spain, runs through Flieden, so many soldiers, merchants, etc. passed through over the centuries. It was a good place to set up an inn.

My direct ancestor was Nicolaus’ second wife Magdalena SPAHN, who was from Bavaria. His first wife was Anna Catharina NÜCHTER first, who died around 1836. It’s likely that she died and he married Magdalena SPAHN in Ohio. His first wife may have been one of the 3 relatives who came with him, per the immigration record, another being their son Johannes. Regardless, these were early Ohio settlers, and Nicolaus first went to Defiance, Ohio, where my ancestor Joseph was born, then moved on to Delphos, Ohio, according to notes from the parish priest of St. John the Evangelist RC Church in Delphos. Nicolaus died in Washington Township, Van Wert Co., Ohio on Apr. 30, 1851 at just 43 years old. His descendants in the United States typically spelled the family name BAKER.

I am a descendant of the following families from Hessen:

While most of my Hessen ancestry is through my mother, via the Becker & Spahn families, my father had an ancestor from Darmstadt, Hessen – Johann Conrad WANNEMACHER – who moved to Saarland. A master bricklayer, he was born in Darmstadt in 1658 and his move to Bierbach was in part due to repopulation of the village after the Thirty Years’ War. His family was Lutheran, while my mother’s ancestors were Catholic.

When I visited Germany in 2014, I visited Darmstadt, and even flew into Frankfurt, but at the time I was unaware of my Flieden Parish connections. So I did not visit Flieden, even though I was only a 1 hour drive away from Frankfurt.