On this day in 1700, my 7G-grandmother, Maria Barbara Beck, was born in Ellmendingen, Germany. Her parents were Conrad and Anna (Steffan) Beck. On 29 November 1718 (also in Ellmendingen) she married Johann Jacob Ratz, who was 24. Maria died in 1771, though her death location is unknown (so far).
Maria and Johann had a son, Hans Ratz, born in 1724; he and his wife Anna Maria Fuess had a son Sebastian, born in 1754. He and his wife Anne Marie Schaubhut had a daughter Anna Maria Raz. She married Johannes Demler, and they had Johan Demler, who would emigrate to the U.S. in 1864 and die in Fairbury, Illinois, in about 1890. Their daughter Mary married Samuel Slagel and was the mother of my great-grandmother, Emma Alice Slagel.
My information regarding this couple comes from the Demler Family Tree posted to the LDS FamilySearch website; as I say every week, I need to dig some more into the primary sources to fill out the family tree. And these sources do exist, apparently; according to Wikipedia there are records from Ellmendingen dating to the year 919. The town has a population of 2477, and it still retains a church built in the 16th century and named after St. Barbara of Nicomedia. The astronomer Johannes Kepler lived in a house at Durlacher Strasse 24 from 1579-1584.
