NOTE: Meridian reader Denise Midgley related the following story which summarizes her inspiring research trip to Germany. Thank you, Denise, for sharing this with us.
Finding ancestors in Baden was the challenge and focus of a two-week trip to Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland in November of 2012. I was searching for my seventh great-grandmother’s family whose surname was Thorwart. I had spent two years preparing for this trip by looking at microfilm of old church records from Bretten, Baden, at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. I had learned the German language and some of the Schwabish dialect when serving as a missionary in southern Germany in 1966. This helped me read the church records, but the ones from 1500 and 1600 were very confusing.
I decided to ask for help from an LDS German friend in Frankfurt, Gisela Klein, who speaks wonderful English and has worked at the State archives in Karlsruhe. With her help, we contacted the Lutheran Church in Bretten, Baden.
My friend, Vickie Hoezle Gann, was also researching in the same area. Some of the western section of Baden now includes Alsace Lorraine. Vickie’s grandmother, Caroline Weill, came from Alsace Lorraine to the U.S. in the mid-1800’s. She worked as a barmaid in a Philadelphia tavern owned by John Hoezle and Vickie had assumed she married and stayed in Philadelphia.
Vickie and I planned this research trip together, hoping we would be able to solve some mysteries on both sides of our families.
Vickie Hoezle Gann in Ribeville
Our great adventure began with a search for the Weill family in the small town of Ribeville. We went to several churches and cemeteries and talked to a priest and workers in the Lutheran church, but no luck.
We checked the county archives. We found one Weill family with a daughter, Caroline, but we wondered if she was the right person. We later found Caroline’s marriage record in Camden, New Jersey and not in Philadelphia as Vickie had originally thought.
We left Ribeville and went to Bretten, Baden, Germany where we met Gisela. She took Vickie and me to meet Mr. Vogler who had worked in the city records office. He spoke Schwabish, and a flood of memories washed over me as I understood much of what he said. Mr. Vogler was a “gold mine” of information. He had taken it upon himself to make notebooks on each family in Bretten. What a surprise it was when I asked about the Thorwart family and he looked at me and said, “Here we call the family Dorwarth.” Through the years, different branches of the family had changed the spelling of the name. He explained that in 1500, the name was Dorwaecher meaning “the one who watched at the main tor or Dorr.” No wonder I had trouble looking for Throwart and Throwarth.
Denise Midgley, Herr Vogler, Gisela Klein. This picture was taken in Herr Vogler’s study. The many notebooks are his personal effort to connect all the families in Bretten, Baden.
One especially poignant moment was when I read the account of two sisters, Appollonia and Maria Lohrer. The family lived in Flehingen about 1635. Both sisters were in their seventies during the Thirty Years War. Under their names, Herr Vogler’s note added, “In January they were beaten by the soldiers and they went to Goesheim where they both starved to death months later.” As I read Herr Vogler’s small print, I felt the cold and pain of it all. Later as I helped with their Temple work, I could feel their great joy and rejoicing. It is exciting and rewarding to bring these blessings to others.
I have loved family history all my life. I feel “the joy and excitement” when hearing about others’ experiences. My father’s maternal family came from Southern Germany to Pennsylvania where they joined the LDS Church in the 1840’s. In 1898, one of the grandsons returned to Germany as a missionary. He visited many of the towns and churches and took the research back two generations. Others in the family worked to continue the lines and eventually published a book, The Zimmermanns of Lehi, Utah.
What a privilege to be an instrument in bring to pass the promises of life everlasting to our great grandparents. What a Great Adventure!
Carol Kostakos Petranek is a Co-Director of the Washington DC Family History Center, a FamilySearch Volunteer Coordinator, and a Citizen Archivist at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
