My head was really spinning for a while trying to figure out the personalities who were involved in today’s family.  It all started with looking at the birthday of Mary Poehner, who was born on November 19, 1858.  I often go to Ancestry.com once I find a person who would potentially be a character in one of these blog posts.  I did that for Mary Poehner and quickly found that she was married to a man by the name of John Frederick Dippold who was born on March 10, 1841.  However, when I went to find John Frederick Dippold in other family trees on Ancestry, I found another one who was married to a Sophia Kropf (or Sophia Kropf Rentel), and yet another one who was married to a Dorothea Bergman (or Dorothea Gaebelein).  All of the John Frederick Dippold’s had the birth date of March 10, 1841.  Add to that the fact that there were different names for the children in these family trees depending on which one you looked at.  I was totally perplexed.

As it turns out, I would not have spent so much time being confused if I had gone first to our German Family Tree to look at the entry for John Frederick Dippold instead of just looking at the entry for Mary Poehner.  Once I looked at the Dippold’s in the GFT, I noticed a most important word written there behind the name of John Frederick Dippold.  That word was “twin”.  Are you ready for this?  Not only do we find twin boys that were born on March 10, 1841 in Germany, but one of them is said to have the name John Frederick Dippold, and the other one has the name of Frederick John Dippold.  Here I will also add that the records state that their mother’s maiden name was Poehner.  Oh, my!

I am going to call the one listed as John Frederick as John, and the one listed as Frederick John as Frederick.

I think I now have this family more or less figured out, but in the process of sorting it all out, I noticed several things.  After looking at the numerous family trees on Ancestry.com and finding so many inconsistencies, I realize that there are so many mistakes to be found there.  I know that one of the things I have learned about doing family research is that you have to be very careful when looking on Ancestry.com for answers.  Since so many people on Ancestry.com get their information from other family trees, sometimes mistakes get multiplied when they are just copied from one tree to another.   I have learned that it is important to take a good look at the documents that are attached to these family trees.

Much of the documentation for this story is found in the reconstructed books of Peace Lutheran Church in Friedenberg.  Since those are just reconstructed records, I am unable to show original records that were destroyed in a fire.  It is in the Friedenberg book that we have in our library that I could find the information about these two Dippold twins, and it is there that our German Family Tree gets most of its information.

I found these twins included in the 1860 census prior to their getting married.

This entry brings in another difficulty.   Not only do you see the twins, one called John Dippold and the other called John Frederick Dippold, but there was also a 20 year old son called Frederick Dippold.  Based on what I have discovered, that son was usually called Fritz.

When I looked at the 1870 census, I could only find one Dippold in Perry County.  He was called Frederick Dippold and he was living by himself.

The age of this man does not fit well with the Fritz, so I expect it is one of the twins, but I cannot say for sure which one.  I think the one named Frederick John is more likely.

Frederick married Sophia (Kropf) Rentel, who had been previously married, on July 10, 1870.  I do not have a record to display for this marriage.

John married Mary Poehner on February 24, 1879.  Below is the civil marriage record for that wedding.  If I read this correctly, the marriage was performed by a justice of the peace.

When the 1880 census was taken, we find both of the twins.  They are just one page away from each other in that census.  Here is Frederick’s entry.

Next, here is the entry for John.

Sophia Dippold died in 1883, and Frederick remarried in 1889.  His second wife was Dorothea (Bergmann) Gaebelein.  The next census in which we find these twins was in 1900.  Here is Frederick’s entry.

Next, here is the entry for John.

Frederick died in 1902.  He was buried in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville.  Findagrave.com has a gravestone that is labeled Johann Friedrich Dippold which has no birth date or death date.  It is shown below.

I have enlarged this image, and I think I see March 10 where there would be a birth date, so I assume this is Frederick’s gravestone.

John can be found in both the 1910 census and the 1920 census.  I am only going to display the one for 1910.

John Dippold died in 1925 at the age of 84; Mary Dippold died in 1952 at the age of 93.  They are buried together in the Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery in Perryville.

I might add that there was another post written about some descendents of John and Mary Dippold.  That post was titled, Another Teacher Mueller.

One of the main reasons I decided to write this story today was to point out the difficulties that sometimes arise when doing family research.  The fact that the parents in this story decided to name their children Frederick (Fritz) and the twins, John Frederick and Frederick John, certainly made the research for this story a real challenge.