A family history • Urspringen, Lower Franconia
Marianne’s
Roots
The Frankels of Urspringen
A house number, a weaver’s trade, a child’s name. Following Marianne’s family back through six generations of village life.
A selected, book-sourced family chapter.
Prepared from Martin Frankel’s two family histories.
The world before the Elkan story
A house number, a weaver’s trade, a child’s name: Marianne’s roots come into view through small, specific traces. Martin Frankel’s family history places her parents in house 165 in Urspringen in 1853, identifies her father Salomon as a cotton weaver in an 1859 record, and lists Marianne among their nine children. It gives her birth as 30 May 1856. [1]
A family in the village
The book traces this line back to Berlein, whose Hebrew name was Issachar. In 1710, he obtained permission to reside in Urspringen and jointly bought a house. He traded livestock; his son Feiss, known in Hebrew as Meshullam, dealt in horses. Feiss married Miriam of nearby Wiesenfeld in 1740. [2]
These details belong to a particular legal world. Residence depended on “protection,” with payments and conditions imposed by the local ruler. The book reproduces part of Feiss’s protection letter and describes his requests for reduced payments. This is evidence about his circumstances; it should not be read as a complete account of Marianne’s life more than a century later. [2]
Houses, names & households
Feiss and Miriam’s son Nathan married Ricka, also called Rebekka. Their son Faust Nathan married Besla Hirz Hamburger in 1814. The book places Faust and Besla in house 22½ and says they adopted the Frankel surname in 1817. Ricka is the mother in this line: Nathan’s later wife, Mindel, belongs to a different maternal branch. [3]
House numbers make this history tangible without making every Frankel home Marianne’s own. The book’s village map marks a synagogue, Jewish schoolhouse, mikve and earlier Frankel properties. It offers the setting of a community, rather than evidence that Marianne personally used every building shown. [4]
Salomon & Breinla
Salomon, son of Faust and Besla, married Breinla Klein on 13 August 1850. The book preserves a portrait of Breinla and a transcription of Salomon’s 1816 circumcision entry. By 1853, their household was in house 165; later, houses 165 and 166 passed to their daughter Babette. According to the book, Babette alone among their nine children remained in Urspringen. [1]
Two dates remain visibly unsettled. Salomon’s death appears as 1872 in the chart, but as 1875 in the narrative and reproduced grave inscription. For Feiss, the chart gives 1788, while the narrative and grave transcription give 1789. This chapter preserves both readings. [5]
From Marianne onward
Volume 2 brings the village ancestry into the Elkan family: Marianne and Moses, their son Siegfried and his wife Louise, and their sons Kurt and Bruno. Inge Seligmann is shown as Kurt’s wife. A portrait identifies Marianne and Moses with Nürnberg. [6]
One connection also has a separate documentary foundation. The archive’s reviewed military family insert names Moses Elkan and Marianne, born Fraenkel, as Siegfried’s parents. “Fraenkel” is the form on that record; “Marle” appears in Volume 1. They are name variants for Marianne here, not additional people. This record supports the link to Siegfried, not Marianne’s own parentage. [7]
Begin with Marianne
Open a name for its details and volume/page citations. Expand the generations before her, or follow the Elkan connection below. Spouses appear side by side; the line between rows marks descent.
This is the books’ selected family line. The main archive remains authoritative. Salomon’s 1872 / 1875 and Feiss’s 1788 / 1789 death-year disagreements are unresolved.
Marianne Frankel Elkanb. 30 May 1856Open life & sources
Preferred name Marianne. Book gives Urspringen birth; date and parentage remain compiled-source claims. Fraenkel is literal surname form in the military family insert; death date is not established.
Vol. 1, pp. 130, 132 · Vol. 2, pp. 44–45 · Military family insert IMG_7341 / PHOTO-000451; PS-000623/624 — Supports only: Moses Elkan and Marianne geb. Fraenkel named as Siegfried’s parents; does not establish Marianne’s own parents or vital dates. Based on the archive’s existing reviewed reading; the original was not freshly authenticated for this chapter.
Book-sourced identity; evidence applies to the particular claims described.
Moses ElkanDates not established hereOpen life & sources
Book gives Raesfeld origin, with birth and death dates unknown. No parents inferred and no merger with other men named Elkan or Moses Frankel.
Vol. 2, pp. 44–45 · Military family insert IMG_7341 / PHOTO-000451; PS-000623/624 — Supports only: Moses Elkan and Marianne geb. Fraenkel named as Siegfried’s parents; does not establish Marianne’s own parents or vital dates. Based on the archive’s existing reviewed reading; the original was not freshly authenticated for this chapter.
Book-sourced identity; evidence applies to the particular claims described.
The military family insert also names Marianne and Moses as Siegfried’s parents. That documentary support does not establish Marianne’s earlier ancestry. Source 7
How the family remembered
This history survived through more than one kind of record: family trees, photographs, registers, gravestones and archival research. Martin Frankel describes finding copies of the 1927 tree with dispersed relatives, discovering differences between versions, and correcting earlier conclusions. The books let us follow that recovery while keeping the difference between a family compilation and an original record in view. [8]
A record can change a story
A chart, a grave inscription and a later research note can disagree. Keeping those differences visible lets the next reader see both the family connection and the work still to be done.
Book copies, photographs and the existing archive may share sources. Repetition alone is not independent confirmation.
Faces across the generations
Breinla Klein Frankel
Breinla Klein Frankel, Marianne’s mother, as identified in Martin Frankel’s family history. Photograph undated.
From Martin Frankel, The Frankels of Urspringen, Volume 1, p. 130. Reproduced with permission.
Volume 1, p. 130 · private family copy
Moses & Marianne Elkan
Moses and Marianne Elkan, identified by the family. The handwritten label uses “Mariana”; the photograph is undated. The same portrait appears in Volume 2, p. 44.
Elkan family archive, IMG_6757.jpeg. The same portrait appears in Martin Frankel, The Frankels of Urspringen, Volume 2, p. 44; that section credits material and photographs supplied by Marc D. Elkan.
Original photograph · family archiveSources & reading notes
Links open existing private family copies in Drive; select the named page in the viewer. Access remains subject to their existing permissions. Numbered book pages are printed/PDF pages in the supplied copies.