On Tue, 11 Apr 2000 16:36:02 -0600 Hartleys <hartleys@mciworld.com> writes: Snip . . . >His military records list his place of birth as Diedesheim, Bavaria. >Prior to this I had only suspected that the family was from somewhere >near Oppau. I found only one DIEDESHEIM on my fairly recent German Autoatlas, that one is about 30km (19 miles) airline distance east-southeast from Heidelberg. Diedesheim looks like a northern suburb of MOSBACH. Looking at my 1815-1866 Central Europe Map(from the web) that puts it just inside Baden. That is however a long distance from Bavaria further east. There could have been another town/village by that name there then, but not now. OPPAU looks like a suburb of and just north of Ludwigshafen, that is about 10 km (just over 6 miles) south-east from Grossniedesheim. Ludwigshafen is right on the border of Baden and the Pfalz. The old part of the town, as of today, is on the east side of the Rhein and more than likely was in Baden in the 1800 time frame. >My first question is, how much did Bavarians move around during this >time period? I found an IGI christening record from Grossniedesheim, 11 >miles from Diedesheim, for Andreas MüLLER. Using the same measurements, the distance between Grossniedesheim and Diedesheim is more like 70km or 44 miles, again airline distance. Where did you get the 11 mile distance from? Snip . . . >Is it likely that a family moved around in a ten or twenty mile area in >this time period? I was under the impression that there was little >freedom to move. That I don't know, 20 miles was a great distance then. I have a 3ggf born about 1755 in Zweibrücken, Pfalz and he died in 1828 in Schlicherun, Düsseldorf, Rheinland. Now that is a great distance. What caused his family to relocate was a result of religious persecution. History repeats itself. > . . .The family was Evangelisch. Did every little town >have a church, or would christenings have taken place in a larger town >nearby? During two visits (one just last summer) and traveling extensivily, I observed even the smallest village had at least one church, more if different denominations required one. The churches were well preserved and were built well before the turn of the century. They all also had at least one Gaststube, but that is another story. >Diedesheim, Bavaria, does not come up when I search for LDS >records. Just the one in Baden is listed. Try a search on Mosbach, Baden instead. Diedesheim in under the jurisdiction (Kreis) of Mosbach. Hope I was of some help. Herb. herbpalm@juno.com herbpalm@flash.net Albuquerque, New Mexico Please visit my "Genealogy" web page at: http://www.flash.net/~herbpalm ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.