Darrel, I am not trying to suggest that you must use some sort of town identification for your ancestor. Many people use the incorrect LDS identification and they are happy with their listing. Prior to the establishment of the Grand Duchy the area of Baden on a map appeared almost as a patch-work quilt....there were so many different ownerships. It is somewhat "to each his own"....list what you believe is correct and be as consistent as possible. Sometimes the time-period control can be determined from Wendelin's companion page < http://ortenau.genealogy-bw.de > and sometimes there is history-control at the town's home page which often is the generic http://www.typethetown name.de/. When the Grand Duchy was formed there were only three Kreis established for the entire country. Baden as all states of the United States changed its internal status by changing Kreis boundaries and adding many additional Kreis. I mention the counties of the United States as when you search a town, over the years, it may have had its political position changed a number of times; of course, with no movement of the town. The towns of Baden also changed political location often. For the Gutach called as Wolfach by the LDS, it is also referred to as part of Offenburg at other times in history since the organization of the Grand Duchy as well as many other more correct names. You do want to be certain as to which Gutach was the home of your ancestor. Hopefully, you can find him in a baptismal or marriage Rite within one of the LDS-filmed Church Registers. I had a similar problem in my Sur/Saur/Sauer ancestors from Baden. A portion of the family moved to Müllen in the 1700s. After a wasted search at the town of Müllen, I learned that there were two different towns named Müllen within only a few kilometers of each other. There are many towns in Baden and in Germany with duplicate names. In Baden, this is a result of that patch-work quilt arrangement.....the two towns close together were in different territories. I wanted the Müllen in the Habsburg Vorderösterreich but I had incorrectly searched for that portion of the family in the Müllen to the south which I believe had been in the Hessen Hanau-Lichtenberg lands. There are a number of maps, online, which show the pre-Napoleonic area of Baden. Others are better but I imagine that < http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/shepherd/german1_shepherd.jpg > is the one site which may never have its URL changed. Another site which probably doesn't change its URL is Mike Pantel's < http://www.pantel-web.de/bw_mirror/history/bwmaps/bw_316.jpg > part of his set of B-W pages. For my own purposes, after the formation of the Grand Duchy, I use only three dates, in part because most of my searched-for ancestors had left Europe during that period of time and in part because trying to determine which Kreis or which local authority was correct is too difficult to be correct. Those three dates are: August 13, 1806....Grand Duchy of Baden July 26, 1866...Grand Duchy of Baden, South German Federation January 18, 1871...Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire This way with only the town name and this type of country identification, I hope not to make any incorrect location identifications. Before 1806, it is fun and games. djweber djwdjw@ix.netcom.com ------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darrel" <dar7ter@comcast.net> To: "'djweber'" <djwdjw@ix.netcom.com> Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 11:51 AM Subject: RE: [Ortenau] Gutach Thanks. That is the location I need. I am using the "Autoatlas Deutschland (Falk) 1999/2000, that I bought in Germany while there. I have usually been able to locate my towns, but when there are more than one town with the same name it is difficult to decide. I suppose that this Gutach belonged to Wolfach at the time the ancestors lived there, so it would be the one, not Gutach/Breisgau. The location on the ld-s only says Gutach, Offenburg, Baden. Both Gutachs are about the same distance from Offenburg. The Person I am looking for is Georg Weltin/Waeltin that was married to Catharina Zipf. Thanks again for your information Darrel