The church spire rises above the rooftops and trees of Bann.

Among the ancestors of my paternal grandmother, Mary Thinnes Folzenlogen, are Peter Metzler and Margeretha Sehi. Athough they married in Cincinnati in 1840, they were both born in Bann, Germany, in October of 1817. There is some suspicion that they were even born on the same day because their baptismal records in the book for the church pictured above come one right after the other.

A view of the town of Bann taken from property owned by our Sehi relatives.

In 1959, Jack Monninger of Indianapolis visited Bann on one of the seven trips he made. Like us, he is descended from both the Metzler and the Sehi lines, except a generation later. He has many stories about both of the families gleaned in conversations during his visits.

A different view of Bann with some of our Sehi relatives in the foreground.

Jack is descended from Jakob Metzler and Carolina Sehi, a nephew of Peter and a niece of Margeretha who came over in the 1890s after marrying in Germany. Early family efforts at genealogy were stymied because people confused the town of Bann with the city of Bonn, the former capitol of West Germany. As you can see, it is definitely not a large industrial city.

The fields around Bann as viewed from a farm owned by some Metzler relatives.

Peter Metzler had at least two of his brothers come to the US. Five siblings from Margeretha Sehi's family came. Two of Jakob Metzler's brothers also came. And Jack's family learned of a third when a woman from California wrote his grandmother saying, "I think you may be my aunt."

The old school in Bann where our ancestors were educated.

Our family who lived and learned in this town also stuck together when they came to the new world. Many of the people from Bann came first to Cincinnati. They found spouses if they were not already married. Then they moved to farmland in southeast Indiana. Gradually they fanned out from there.

Link to Google Map of Bann.