On last day of a weeklong class in Salt Lake City where I am discouraged at the Family History Library. I have searched all week and found no new information on any line.
It was my first time at the library and I thought I was prepared. I had every family line in a 3-ring notebook; I had my genealogy program up to date with all the family information. I inherited files and memorabilia, which provided the information in the software. But I really had no idea how to “research”!
I finally decided to look for the friend’s name given in a family narrative of my 2ndgreat grandfather. I had looked for Peter Paul Deewall in passenger lists for years with no luck. The narrative never said where he came from but it was assumed Germany. I had searched many times for his friend and the friend’s mother; Ludwig and Mary Odom.
All of a sudden, Ludwig Odom’s baptism record was returned in a search at the FHL. I knew it was “my” Ludwig Odom. How did I know that? Because the Angels tapped my shoulder and my psychic abilities told me so. The leader of the weeklong seminar assured me that I could not assume that! What…. when angels and psychic knowledge know more???
Obviously I had to find proof, I know that; but I knew it was definitely a clue.
For the next couple of weeks I considered my case and reread the narrative and thought of all the different ways to search Ludwig, Odom and Deewall. When I returned to the computer, I began search for Ludwig, Louis and variations of the names. BINGO…. I found Louis Odom’s passenger record. Not under Ludwig, but Lewis Otton. And would you believe, right below Louis’s name was Peter Paul DUVAL! And with Lewis’s mother…Mary Otton. I could never find Mary because she was indexed wrong; as Mary Otton Widow! Widow was listed on the passenger list after after Otton. I would never have looked for the name WIDOW!
And would you believe that Peter Paul Duval’s baptism record was in the same church as Ludwig Odom? My psychic abilities were right! Both were at the Evangelisch, in Ludweiler, Rheinland, Prussia. And Peter had same birth date that was in family records! Through the Family History Library, I was able to order a film that gave the genealogy or pedigree of everyone in the Evangelisch church Ludweiler, Germany. The amazing Stammlisten gave the birth date of Peter Paul and his parents, his father’s death date and his mother’s remarriage with additional children. Even more amazing was the fact that the Odom’s had left for Amerika in 1842. Which matched the passenger list of arrival on 23 May 1842. But Peter Paul Duval was not listed as going to Amerika in 1842. The family story is that he did not get along with his stepfather and left as the driver of the wagon for the Odom’s in the middle of the night. Fact or Fiction??
Where is Ludweiler? It is in Saarland, Germany near Saarbrücken. And I was lucky enough to visit Ludweiler and the church in 2014. What a thrill to see the 150-year-old organ. The visit with complete with a tour of the archives by a lady at the church. No I couldn’t touch anything in the archives and most of the records that I wanted had been removed. Unfortunately she wasn’t sure where they had been moved. And our time to visit Ludweiler was short.
In the 1850 Census of Limestone Township in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, Peter Paul Deewall and his wife Catherine and baby Maretta, were living as neighbors to Mary Oto and her son Lewis!
