A prayer helped find ancestors

In 1952, I came home from high school and walked through our house to my bedroom. As I approached my bedroom I saw my mother, Pearl Hodges Giffen Michaelis, kneeling at my bedside praying. I wondered why she was praying in the middle of the day; she usually said her prayers morning and evening.

As she finished she told me that she was praying over a letter she had in her hand. She had been working on her great-grandfather's genealogy line. His name was Michael Fechtling. She had searched and searched and had come to a brick wall.

Mama remembered her grandmother, Charlotte Fechtling Huller, telling her they had an uncle that lived in New Philadelphia City, Tuscarawas, Ohio. Mama wrote a letter addressed to the postmaster of New Philadelphia, asking him if he would forward her letter to any Fechtling of that city.

A week or so later Mama received a phone call from the postmaster. He explained to her they did not have a directory service in their city but felt he should try to help her locate the people she was looking for. Mama could hardly speak she was so overcome with emotion; her humble request had been answered.

He told her he had looked for the name Fechtling in their area but had come up with nothing. He said there were a couple of people by the name of Feightling and he would send her their addresses. She thanked him profusely for his generous help.

Mama had received two addresses, one for Emmett Feightling and one for Ralph Feightling. She wrote to Emmett. In about a week she received a letter giving her all kinds of documents and information that made it possible to research her family name for generations. Emmett had copies of passports with the original surname of Voegtling, unlocking the mystery of why it was impossible to find the Fechtling line. My mother's letter found literally the only people in the world that knew their surname was Voegtling.

Thus, the family of Phillip Jacob Voegtling, born Nov. 22, 1767, at Weitersweiler, Alsace, Lorraine, Germany and Maria Salome Hans, born Dec. 12 1773, had eight children, two immigrating to America changing their names to Fechtling and Feightling, the remaining six children living in France known by the original surname of Voegtling. The family was so discontented with the political regime in Germany they moved to France.