The Beringer mill

We were visiting friends up north, and on the way back we took a detour to visit where the Beringer family came from, in the Eltville area near Wiesbaden.

We found the old mill that used to be in the family on a street named "An der Lochmühle", on the way into the resort town of Schlangenbad. It has been rebuilt since my ancestors lived and worked there, though the general layout of the buildings on the land is very similar to what it once was. However it was good to see where it was, and imagine my ancestors there, and to walk past the creek that young Beringer children might have played in in summers of years gone by.

This plaque was on the side of the building behind the mill wheel. It reads:

"Lochmühle 

Als Mahlmühle erbaut 1698

Neu errichtet 1937 durch

Hein A. Moeller"

which translates as "Lochmühle. Built as a grist mill 1698. Newly built in 1937 by Hein A. Moeller."

As well as seeing the mill, I checked out some of the local cemeteries, to see if there were any remaining headstones of long gone relatives. I wasn't expecting much, because in Germany graves can be recycled every 30 years or so, but I was rather hoping they might have kept old headstones. I checked three local cemeteries - Rauenthal, Martinstal and Schlangenbad, but sadly nothing there appeared relevant. Rauenthal had only new headstones, Martinstal had a couple of older ones amongst all the new, and Schlangenbad was a very quiet cemetery, way off up the hill from the town, with a number of headstones remaining from the time of my Beringers, but still there was no luck. 

I could have done much more exploring in the area, but we still had a good number of hours' drive before we would be home, and the kids were getting restless so I had to leave it at that. Maybe another time...