Isaac and Sarah Epp Franz on their wedding day

Although photographs such as the one below help us to picture what our ancestors looked like (and perhaps even see where a particular physical trait originated), we really do need a program to keep all the names straight. With all the Peters, Margarethas, Johanns, and Sarahs, not to mention the mixing and intertwining of Bullers and Epps and Sieberts and Franzes or the fact that we have Peter as a first name and Peters as a last name, as well as Franz as a first name and as a last name, it is easy to become lost and confused in the genealogical maze that is our family.

Thus to put it as simply as possible, this is the wedding photograph of Grandma Malinda’s parents: Isaac G. and Sarah Epp Franz. They wed on 7 December 1905, and Grandma was born a little more than ten months later, on 20 October 1906.


Isaac was the third child and first son of Gerhard and Anna Peters Franz, who emigrated separately to the U.S. from Molotschna colony and married shortly after arriving. Remarkably, we can trace Isaac’s lineage back several generations further, to eighteenth-century Prussia, to a village named Ober Gruppe in the district Schwetz, West Prussia (i.e., Poland).

Thus Grandma’s Franz side would stretch back as follows: Malinda > Isaac G. > Gerhard > Peter > Gerhard (born 26 February 1783 in Ober Gruppe). When the village was established is uncertain, but it lives on even today (population 580). In fact, in 1935 twelve Mennonite families still lived in Ober Gruppe (modern Górna Grupa; pictured above), and one of them was named Franz.

The family of Isaac’s mother, Anna Peters Franz, can be traced back a generation further, as follows: Malinda Franz > Isaac Franz > Anna Peters > Jacob Abraham > Abraham Jacob > Jacob > Jacob. The latter two Jacobs lived in Lakendorf, a village in Gross Werder district in West Prussia. This village (now Solnica) likewise remains today (not too far inland from the Baltic Sea, southeast of Gdańsk [former Danzig]), although it is only about half the size of Górna Grupa.

We have already encountered the Epp side of Grandma’s family here, with the photograph of Jacob and Margaretha Siebert Epp, but we can also trace the Epp side back to the mid-eighteenth century: Malinda Franz > Sarah Epp > Jacob > Jacob > Franz (who was born 19 November 1752). The latter two men lived in the same general area as Lakendorf, in a village named Schönau.

Sarah Epp’s mother was, as we have already discussed, Margaretha Siebert, who was the sister of Sarah Siebert Buller, wife of Peter D Buller. For the sake of completeness, we can trace this branch of the family as well: Malinda Franz > Sarah Epp > Margaretha Siebert > Johann Siebert > Cornelius Peter > Peter. As one might expect, the latter two individuals in the line lived in West Prussia in the same general region as the others.

Even with all the names written out, it is difficult to keep everyone straight, but at least now we have a bit more detail and specificity on Grandma’s heritage. One thing that should be evident from all this is that our exploration of our family’s life in Molotschna is only the first step back. Before Molotschna our forebears lived and generally prospered in West Prussia, otherwise known as Poland. In time we will turn our attention to that period in our family’s history, with a goal of someday working further back to our earliest roots in the Netherlands, in broad strokes if nothing else.