Genealogical Expeditions – URPHAR, Germany

On our recent Viking River Cruise in April/May 2022, we were able to do two genealogical expeditions!  This post is about the first of those – while cruising the Main River in Germany.

My 6G grandfather Christoph Kühn, born in 1748 in Urphar, Baden, Germany, immigrated in 1752 with his parents Christoph Kühn and Anna Elisabetha (Scheurich) Kühn and his two siblings.[1]  The family landed in Philadelphia aboard the ship Phoenix on 2 November 1752, and stayed on to live in the Germantown area.[2]  My 7G grandfather was listed as a soldier on young Christoph’s baptism record, and as a musketeer in the Don Yoder book Pennsylvania German Immigrants 1709-1786.[3]

Uphar is in the Wertheim region, along the Main River in Germany. 

I knew that we’d be sailing past this small little town while we were on the Main River, so I explained to the front desk that I wanted to be up to take a picture as we did so.  They in turn talked with the Captain of our ship, and they arranged for me to be called as we were going past.  I was given a time estimate of 6am, which would have been just as the sun was rising (and a perfect time!).  I slept in my clothes that night, so that when I got the call I could jump out of bed and run to the lobby. 

Needless to say, my plan to wear my clothes was a good one.  I got the call at 5:30am, threw on a sweatshirt, and by the time I got to the lobby we were already right next to Urphar.  I was able to get a couple of pictures even though it was still dark out – zooming in helped with the light.  In the below picture, you can see the church built in the 13th century, and which my ancestors would have attended.  I was so excited to see this small little town in Germany!

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[1] For birth and parents’ names, see Baden:  Regional Church Archives Karlsruhe > Urphar > Mixed Book 1666, 1667, 1667 – June 1811, digital image, archion.de (https://www.archion.de/de/viewer/?no_cache=1&type=churchRegister&uid=191329 : viewed 31 January 2021), image 32.  For immigration, see Landesarchiv Baden-Wurttemberg, "Emigration from Southwest-Germany > Search for Emigrants," Urphar, Wertheim; database, auswanderer-bw.de (https://www.auswanderer-bw.de/auswanderer/index.php?sprache=de&suche=1 : viewed 6 May 2021) along with the Oath of Abjuration in Ralph Beaver Strassburger, Ll.D. and William John Hinke, editors, Pennsylvania German Pioneers Vol. 1, 1727-1775 (Norristown, Pa.: Pennsylvania German Society, 1934), pp. 501-503; digital image, Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/pennsylvaniagerm03penn_2/page/500/mode/2up : viewed 6 May 2021).

[2] Note that 6G Christoph Kühn married in 1770 in Germantown.  St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church (Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), marriage record, p. 38 (1770), Christoph Kuhn and Elisabeth Schlosmannin; image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2451/images/42154_329937-00138 : viewed 29 Jan 2021), image 139.

[3] Don Yoder, ed., Pennsylvania German Immigrants 1709-1786 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1980), p.226.