Mercks Visit Ancestral Homelands

A group of 10 American Merck descendants visited the homelands of their ancestors in Alsace and the Ukraine in late May and early June 2007. Among the group were Lawrence, Edward and Sr. Catherine Merck, whose father Anthony and grandfather Joseph were born in Elsass, South Russia (now Ukraine) and grandmother Katherine Eberle was born in Mannheim. Marilyn Bruya, daughter of Anthony's younger sister Magdalena, was also in the group. Pictured here is the former church in Mannheim (now Kamienka) where Joseph Merck married Katherine Eberle in 1887. Elsass is now named Scherbanka. Others in the group were Anthony's grandchildren Dan, Anita and Loretta Whalen (Danzl); great granddaughter Anna Whalen; and Jan Merck, wife of Lawrence.

After visiting the Kutschurgan villages and the city of Odessa in the Ukraine, the group travelled by air to Strasbourg, Alsace, France. They explored the villages of Schoenenbourg and Beinheim where previous generations of Mercks had resided. They also visited Neiderlauterbach, a nearby village where ancestors of Sr. Lorraine Kraft, another member of the group, had lived before emigrating to the Ukraine. Recent graves near the churches, as well as remarks in the Sunday church bulletin in Schoenenbourg, proved that Merck families continue to reside in the area.