Von Wahl

The von Wahl family originated in Scotland and then settled in the Baltic states.

The von Wahl family is a branch of the old Scottish noble family "MacDowall" or "MacDougall of Makerstoun". The family originally came from Galloway on the Scottish west coast. In the Middle Ages the Clan MacDowall had a significant position of power, beginning with Fergus of Galloway (1096–1161). As early as 1390, the Baron Archibald MacDowall was granted the Makerstoun estate on the River Tweed in the Borders area. With him begins the uninterrupted family lineage. The owners and Barons of Makerstoun had a hereditary seat in the Scottish feudal parliament. The branch of the MacDowalls of Makerstoun, Scotland, flourished until the end of the eighteenth century.

Around 1582, the Royal Scottish Officer and Captain Robert Albrecht MacDowall (1541–1641) emigrated from the more recent line of the house Makerstoun to Mecklenburg, Germany . Possibly he was, as the Clan Chief Uchtred MacDowall, Laird of Garthland, involved in the well-known "Raid of Ruthven" in 1582, a failed Protestant uprising against the King Jacob / James VI, so that Robert Albrecht had to flee Scotland. In Mecklenburg, he married Elsa von Bredow and Ursula von Stralendorff.

In 1594, Robert Albrecht entered service to Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and for many years was Royal Administrator of Örbyhus Castle prison and Tierp Castle. The family resided in Sweden and later their name was changed to "Duwall". His sons, the Royal Swedish Colonel Mauritz Duwall (1603–1655), and his half brother, the Swedish General Jacob Duwall (1589–1634), were promoted to the Swedish nobility in 1638 as Swedish Knights for their service in the Thirty Years' War. In 1674, General Jacob Duwall was awarded the Swedish Freiherr posthumously for his military service, and was introduced as Freiherr of the Swedish Aristocracy. The last male Swedish descendents of the Duwalls died in 1923.

Of Robert Albrecht's nine sons, Mauritz Duwall and his half-brother Jacob Duwall founded the Swedish branch of the family. Jacob‘s half brother from his fathers marriage with Ursula von Stralendorff, was the royal Swedish Colonel of the Infantry, Axel Duwall (1595–1630) who represents the beginning of the German-Baltic Wahl family lineage.

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