Heinrich Wippel was my husband’s maternal second Great Grandfather. He was born 21 December 1846 in Maudach, Bavaria and he was baptized two days later in the St. Michael Catholic Church in the same town.
Heinrich’s parents were Markus Wippel and Maria Josepha Firmery. Heinrich had several siblings. Barbara 1837-1893, Elisabetha 1840-1868, Jakob 1844-1868, Anna Maria 1849-1849, Adam 1851-1851 and Johann Adam 1853-1875. None of the siblings were very old when they died. I have yet to find Heinrich’s death date.
Heinrich got married 31 August 1871 in Nußdorf to Elisabetha Hochdörfer.
In the old days it was customary to get married where the bride was from. The couple had several children. One of them was my husband’s Great Grandmother, Barbara Wippel.
Heinrich’s wife died 16 September 1905 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. On her death certificate is a death year of 1917 penciled in next to his name. My guess is that he died that year, however the death certificates for Ludwigshafen are online until the 1950’s on ancestry, but I can’t find Heinrich’s. He must have died somewhere other than Ludwigshafen. It was during WW1, may be Heinrich was visiting relatives. We might never know. Below is his wife’s death certificate. I circled the year 1917. I might manually look at the 1917 death certificates. May be I can find him in Ludwigshafen after all.
Heinrich was born in Maudach, got married in Nußdorf and probably died somewhere near Ludwigshafen.
Barbara Wippel was my husband’s paternal Great Grandmother. She was born 28 May 1881 and died 3 February 1933 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein in Germany. Her parents were Heinrich Wippel and Elisabetha Hochdörfer.
Above is Barbara’s birth certificate from Ludwigshafen. It shows her Father and Mother and their ages. He was 45 years old and quite a bit older than her Mother who was only 32 years old at the time of her birth.
Barbara got married to my husband’s Great Grandfather, Johann Christoph Päbst, 29 September 1906 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Most marriage certificates will have two pages. Here is the first page:
Under number 1 the groom is named and that his parents live in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. A side not the right, states the groom died 12 January 1916. Under number 2, the bride is named and that her Father lives in Ludwigshafen am Rhein and that her Mother died in the same city. A side note to the right states that the bride died 3 February 1933. The second page has different information as seen below.
Under number 3 and 4 the witnesses signed the certificate. To the left of the witnesses are more side notes. These notes state the birth of the twins Herbert and Lothar in 1913 and their respective marriage dates. Underneath is the birth of another son, Ottmar, who was born in 1907 and got married twice. The second marriage was in 1957, the first one is unknown. Barbara and Johann had six children together. The second oldest, Werner Päbst, was my husband’s Grandfather.
Barbara became a widow in 1916 when Johann died. She had a young family to provide for and got quickly married to her second husband, Phillip Friedrich Schneider, 6 March 1917 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein.
The marriage certificate has the same layout as the first one. Under number 1 the groom’s name is stated and that he was born in Pirmasens and that his parents had died there. Under number 2 it states the bride’s name and that she is a widow and that her Father lives in Ludwigshafen. Her Mother died in Ludwigshafen am Rhein.
Above is once again the second page of the marriage certificate. Under number 3 and 4 are the witness. To the left of the witnesses, once again more side notes. This time you can see 4 children and their respective marriages. Philip Anton born 1918, Renate Ann Else born 1921, Manfred Jakob born 1922 and Edgar Adolf born 1920. All four children were born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein.
Unfortunately Barbara lost her second husband in 1925. The older children had to pitch in and help raise the family. Barbara died in 1933 leaving behind a large family. The second oldest, my husband’s Grandfather, Werner Päbst took on the responsibility of taking care of the family.
Barbara was only 51 years old when she died. She was widowed twice and left behind 10 children.
Above is her death certificate. I have a picture of eight of her children.
All ten of her children had families of their own and were successful in their careers. My husband’s Grandfather is the handsome man on the right side of the picture.
Johann was my husband’s Great Grandfather. He was born in Germersheim, Bavaria. Bavaria was an independent state in 1874. Nowadays the town belongs to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. Johann’s parents were the postmaster, Christoph Päbst, and his wife Maria Anna Bordscheller.
Getting records for Johann was fairly easy. I was able to order the marriage and the death certificate from the Ludwigshafen city archives. Johann died in Ludwigshafen very young at the age of only 41 years. He left his widow, Barbara Wippel 1881-1933, and six children behind. On his death certificate his profession was given as a master painter and white washer.
I emailed the archive in Germersheim to order his birth certificate, but they couldn’t find one. I already had his birth and marriage record telling me that he was in fact born in that town. I talked to one my genealogy friends in Germany and he tried and got the same answer. He eventually called the archive in Germersheim and we finally found the answer. His birth certificate was under the Mother’s maiden name, Bordscheller.
The lesson I learnt is not to give up and be persistent. Collaborate with other genealogists. I used to be on many different mailing lists but they have kind of disappeared. Nowadays you can find lots of different genealogy groups on Facebook for example.
My goal is for all our direct ancestors to find birth, marriage and death records. It’s not always possible of course. I have to research each town to see what records are available for the particular time period.
On this particular birth record of course the child is mentioned and his parents. Also the parents of the mother are mentioned as well. On the left side of the certificate is a “Randvermerk” translated as a side note. These side notes are very important on German birth, marriage and death certificates. If you order a certificate from Germany order it with the “Randvermerk”. Not every certificate will have one of course. In the side note it states that Christoph Päbst is the actual Father of Johann Christoph Bordscheller. This side not was written after the Father married the Mother in 1878 and from that moment on the child will carry the last name, Päbst.
What I have not done yet, is to try to get the baptismal record for Johann Christoph. I have to research if the record might be online already. In the last couple of years, Germany has exploded with records coming online. If I do find the record I will post an updated at a later date.
Genealogy Is An Adventure 