My visit to the Ungerecht homeland in Germany started with Meiningen, the regional center and just a couple miles from where our ancestors lived for many generations.

Meiningen is home to the 'stadtkirche' or city church, which holds the records for our ancestors that lived in Helba. I didn't get into the records during my brief visit, but we did see the church and some other sights in town. Click on a picture to see it full size.

This is the city church. It was established in about the year 1000, built in stages, partly burnt and rebuilt. Plus I was using Google Translate on the German website detailing the history of the church, so I'm not entirely sure I got it all straight. But the steeple closest to us in this picture is one of the older parts of the church, built in 1594. The other steeple used to be smaller, the idea was that they would build a 3rd, matching tower on the other side, but in the late 1800's they finally gave up on that idea and rebuilt the smaller tower to match the big one. The towers hold six bells, the two oldest date from 1295.

Matthias, the genealogist who did much of the research on our Ungerechts in Germany, reads the script around memorials to the founders of the church. He can read Latin and old German (even the cursive!), there's no way I can match that.

If I read it right, the choir loft was built in 1443. Johann Brahms performed on this pipe organ, which is fairly new (1889). The organ was damaged in WWII, and refurbished in the 1990's.

I didn't get a great picture of it, but also inside the church was a stone statue of Madonna and Child, which was a gift to the church in 1344.

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When asked about this statue & fountain, our guide, the genealogist Matthias, told us to ignore it as it was "only 150 years old".

Nearby, behind a nondescript doorway, was this courtyard with buildings that date to 1596. There was a display with some items they had found that dated to the 13th century.

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Before leaving Meiningen at the end of the day, we met with Norbert Ungerecht, who owns the restaurant in the Schloss Elisabethenburg palace. We don't know how he's related, we assume if we can go back far enough there would be a connection. I gave him my "Ungerecht Trucking" hat that I had gotten from my 2nd cousin Jim. I hope Jim has extras!

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See also my pictures of: Meiningen (this page), Helba, Walldorf, and Eisenach. See also the overview of Ungerecht locations.