Urban TANNER, Part 12:
My search for the origins of Urban Tanner has led me to four Urban Tanners so far and I have no doubt that the Robert Tanner, i.e., Urban Tanner of the Germanna colonies, is related to these four Urban Tanners. I have our Urban Tanner in the Catholic Church Books of Westhofen where a daughter was born in 1709. Except for this one occasion, he does not appear in the Church Books. In fact, the record there said he was from Argersheim. There is no Argersheim in Germany. It was suggested that Ergersheim in Bavaria might be the intended place. Through other contacts in Germany, I learned the name of a man here in the U.S. who was interested in Tanners. He is the one who supplied me with the four Urban Tanners from Switzerland. He also was able to tell me that Argersheim was a very old name for a village that is now called Oggersheim. Oggersheim is now a part of Ludwigshafen and is about ten miles from Westhofen. There were Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran Churches in Oggersheim. I ordered five microfilms for the churches in Oggersheim and have looked at them. I can’t find any Tanners in these churches.
The baptism and marriage records for the Reformed church from 1698 to 1798 (film 0488257) is a poor quality film and not very useful. The Catholic records include the villages of Oggersheim, Friesenheim, Ruckheim, Rudernheim, Hembshoff, Eighein, and Oppau. I went through this film (0488258) twice and I could not find any Tanners in the baptismal or marriage registers.
Another film (0258010) was a collection of “cards” which contained information on baptisms, marriages, and deaths for the Catholic and Reformed Churches of Oggersheim and Friesenheim. Only surnames starting R, S, or T were on this film but there were no Tanners.
Another film (0440519) for Ludwigshafen and Oggersheim was stated to be baptisms, marriages, deaths, and confirmations from 1699 to 1806. There was one page of baptisms for 1699 then there was a skip until 1720.
The fifth film (0488252) was for the Lutheran Churches of Frankenthal, Oppau, and Oggersheim. This film was reasonably readable so I went through it carefully. I found no Tanners. My only source of pleasure was to read one baptism which seemed to have some familiar names in it. On reading it more carefully, I read, “Leonard Christele (of) Lambsheim and his wife Anna Maria Christele brought a son for baptism 18 August 1709. The child’s name is Johann Theobald. The sponsors were Theobold Banner of Lambsheim and his wife Margaretha.” This, of course, is the baptism of the originator of the Crisler family in the Germanna colonies. His mother’s maiden name is reported to be Bender and this left me wondering if Banner was a mistake for Bender. At other points there is the name Bennar.
It is not clear to me where I should go from here. I have no doubts that Robert Tanner is really Urban Tanner and that he originated in Switzerland. I need proof and more history.
(8 Sep 2007)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.