The Diedel family originates from the area around Münchberg and Kleinlosnitz. To this day, this is the area where the majority of people named Diedel or Dietel are found. It is assumed that the name was derived from the first name Dietrich, which in return goes back to the old-Franconian word "thiuda", meaning "rich (powerful) person among the people" or "ruler of the people". The english name Derrik is the equivalent to Dietrich, Dieter etc.

Margaretha Diedel [Dietel] is my 6 x great grandmother and a native of Upper Frankonia, a region in Southern Germany which includes Bayreuth and the surrounding area.

I didn't know much about Margaretha. From records at my disposal, I knew Margaretha was born around 1650 and may have originated from Möldenreuth, a small hamlet near Münchberg, Bavaria in the very northern part of what was the Principality of Brandenburg-Bayreuth during Margaretha's lifetime. Her father was a farmer in Mödlenreuth and his first name was Cunradt. Her grandfather, Cunradt's father, was probably named Fritz, as Cunradt was sometimes called "Fritzens Cunradt" in these sources.

I found church records from Zell, the parish to which Möldenreuth belonged, listing a number of births around the alleged birth year of Margaretha, in which a Cunradt Diedel was named as the father and a Margaretha as the mother.  I supposed, these may have been her siblings, however, I could not verify a connection, as  Margaretha's birth entry was missing from the records and I didn't know her mother's name. I had also conducted some general research on the family name and Diedel/Dietel families in the Münchberg area, so I had a variety of names and family constellations in my data bank. A connection between these families and Möldenreuth could not be established.

Hitting the brick wall, most genealogists know so well, I placed a request to the members of "Franken-L mailing list", asking if anybody had an idea, on how I could find Margaretha's birth entry and the name of her parents. Within a day or two, a member mailed me a series of document named "AL Goller" suggesting I may find an answer there. And indeed, I did.

In the 1970s the German family historian Hans Goller put together the "AL Goller" (Ahnenliste Goller), a list of his Goller ancestors and affiliated families. His list was amended by Hans Sachs in 1978. One of the affiliated families listed was the Diedel family from Mödlenreuth and the family of Margaretha's mother.

After carefully studying Mr. Goller's notes and cross checking them with other sources from Münchberg and Zell, which I found on the family genealogy site www.archion.de, I made one of the most exciting discoveries of my Dietel research: the long sought-after birth entry for Margaretha and the marriage date of her parents in the church records of Münchberg. These findings confirmed the connection to the births in Mödlenreuth. I was now able to verify the names of Margaretha's siblings I had previously found in the baptism registry of Zell. Another exciting discovery was finding the names of Margareta's maternal grandparents as well as confirming the name of Cunradt's father.

With this information I was able to piece together a brief biography of her family from the records. I did not find a connection between the Diedel families of Mödlenreuth and Kleinlosnitz, but as their paths crossed in Lösten, the home of Margaretha Bencker, it is highly probable, that they are related in some way. Given the fact, that the connection may lie beyond church book recordings, no further research is conducted at present to support or reject this hypothesis.