Johann Philip Kimmel married Anna Elizabeth Voltz on June 10, 1719, in Germany. She is recorded as having been born in Starkenburg, that is, the region around Darmstadt, roughly ten miles or so to the east of Gimbsheim in the state of Hesse-Darmstadt, across the Rhine River.
(At that point in time, "Germany" was a geographical designation [like "North America,"] not a single political unit. The Palatinate was a state within the Holy Roman Empire (which, as Voltaire said, was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire) from 1085 until 1803, ruled by a prince-elector. It may be relevant that the Palatinate was officially Calvinist in religion from 1559 until 1685, then became Catholic again.)
According to W.A. Schwartz, after Johann Philip Kimmel married, he cultivated thirty acres of land, mostly vineyard, at Eich, near Gimbsheim. He lost his wife and two daughters to an epidemic in Germany. In 1755, when he was fifty-nine or sixty years old, he brought his sons to America. He had a farm on Red Run, a tributary of Bermudian Creek, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Johann Philip Kimmel and Anna Elizabeth Voltz are known to have had eight children. The names of the first two are unknown, to me – perhaps the daughters who died? The others were Philip, born 1724; Nicholas, born 1728; Jacob, born 1734; Michael, born 1736, George, born 1743, and Anthony, born 1745.
A modern map of the Darmstadt region with the pointer on Eich.
A modern map showing the location of the Darmstadt region in Europe.