This is the FIFTY-NINTH page of John BLANKENBAKER's series of Short Notes on GERMANNA History, which were originally posted to the GERMANNA_COLONIES Discussion List. Each page contains 25 Notes.
| GERMANNA History Notes
(Page 59) |
Nr. 1451:
This is the start of another "half-century" in these notes and that means it is review time. I thought I might try to define a "Germanna citizen" but I know I am doomed to failure in the sense there are too many definitions floating around and I don't wish to exclude anyone.
The ULTRA-CONSERVATION view is that a Germanna citizen lived in Fort Germanna. This would restrict the number to about forty-two people. Except for one unknown origin, all of these people left the immediate vicinity of Siegen in 1713. The one possible exception is Johann Justus Albrecht whose origin is unknown.
The CONSERVATIVE view is that we should add the eighty or so people who lived just outside the walls of the fort. They were a little more than just outside the walls as they lived across the Rapidan River, from two to eight miles upstream (to the west) from the fort. They probably went to church at the fort while Pastor Haeger was still present. They certainly went to Court at Germanna, after the fort was torn down, when the site became the county seat of the new Spotsylvania County.
This latter group had friends and relatives who started appearing within a few years of the second group's initial appearance. Actually, it a little hard to distinguish these sets of people as we not entirely positive who was in the first wave of the second group. Though the Germans and Spotswood roughly agreed that the first wave of the second group numbered about eighty, we have one hundred and twenty candidates for these eighty slots. So the more LIBERAL members of the CONSERVATIVE group allow all who lived within hailing distance of Fort Germanna.
About twenty years after the first group was at the fort, friends and relatives of theirs started coming. These people were never at the fort and, in fact, never saw the fort. But, if they came from the same region and had some of the same ancestors as those whom we do call Germanna citizens, shouldn't we call them Germanna citizens also? At least that is the more LIBERAL view. So the criteria shifts from a presence at Fort Germanna to the background of the people.
Many of the Germans in the community with the Germanna citizens and their friends and relatives (more likely the latter, than the former), had little in common with the Germanna citizens except they were living in the same region. Eventually, the very LIBERAL view is that anyone of German heritage who lived on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains was a Germanna person.
Ultimately, in the extreme, one asks, "Does it really matter?" No, it does not. The subject matters for discussion are the Germans who lived, for at least a while, on the east side of the Blue Ridge; however, anyone is welcome to the discussion, and, to the extent the subject matter is not diluted too much, all topics are valid. There are many related topics which have a bearing on the subject matter. In the last notes, I was discussing the followers of Waldo. They can be tied in to the reasons there were Germans east of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
After the Reformation, a sizeable group of Reformed adherents (followers of John Calvin) arose in France. These "Protestants", called Huguenots by their opponents, were the center of political and religious quarrels, which at times were extremely bloody. In 1572, thousands of Huguenots were massacred. Still, many of the political leaders were Huguenots. One of them, Henry of Navarre, became the King of France. Since the majority of the people in France were Catholic, Henry decided that he should practice Catholicism. He did, though, issue the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which gave political and religious freedom to the Huguenots in 75 cities. As such, they were a republic within a kingdom.
They lost this political freedom under Henry VIII, but still maintained their religious freedom. In 1685, Louis XIV repealed the Edict of Nantes. Thousands of Huguenots fled their homes for new homes in England, Prussia, The Netherlands, and America. In America, groups of them settled in South Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York.
The most famous Huguenot individual in connection with the Germanna Colonies was John Fontaine. His family had gone to England and Ireland. He was seeking farm land in Virginia where members of the family might settle.
There was a group of Huguenots who were settled along the James River in Virginia on the frontier. This was just before 1700. Over in Switzerland, the authorities were persecuting another religious group, the Anabaptists. One individual there, Franz Michel, thought that perhaps a colony could be set up in America where Anabaptists could be settled. He was aware of the Huguenot colony in Virginia. He decided to investigate whether a Swiss colony might not be set up there along the lines of the Huguenot colony. He made a trip to Virginia, where he liked what he saw. Returning to Switzerland, he described the possibilities to his friends and set off again for America. This time he stayed longer and investigated many facets of America. His most notable find was a silver mine (so he thought). The news of this inflamed Christopher Graffenried, who wanted to develop the silver mines. Graffenried and Michel sought German miners for this purpose. This was the origin of the First Germanna Colony. We might say it owes its existence to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Though the Huguenots have garnered their share of the publicity, it is arguable that they were the largest of the "evictions" for religious reasons. Perhaps a hundred thousand people left Austria after the Thirty Years' War when faced with the choice of becoming Catholic or leaving.
The Waldenses, whom I was writing about recently, were also caught up in the persecutions in France after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. Religion has played an important part in the relocations of Europeans at the dawn of the modern ages.
My text for the lesson today is taken from the Book of Inquiry. It reads,
I like train travel, but nothing beats the flexibility of a car. Car rental rates are reasonable. We had a VW Golf with automatic drive and A/C from Eurocar (both of these characteristics are rare). The drivers in Germany are not overly aggressive, except for the left lane on the autobahn. For the traveling you will be doing, you will hardly need the autobahn. All of the roads are good, at least in the sense that they are all-weather, and you will get there sooner than you expect.
We split the driving up. My wife drove and I read the maps. It has something to do with specialization where each person does what he knows best. It also has something to do with my wife saying that I look around too much. A good detailed map is essential. If you get lost, and you will, a good map will enable you to recover, and have some fun while doing so. A major key to success and enjoying your visit is learning to relax.
When you hit the big cities, park the car and forget it for a while. It is no fun driving around in a large, strange city. And the maps will hardly help you to find your way back to where you are staying. We like to have reservations for a room in the big cities, e.g., Heidelberg. Down in �tisheim where the Broyles lived, it is a different story. We took what chance brought to us, and, once or twice in several weeks, we had to go to the next town. As you drive around, plan some routes that take you to new territory.
Make a list of the villages you would like to visit. From Heidelberg, you can go to:
Take in some castles. Act as if your ancestor did own a castle and your are coming back to reclaim it. In Heidelberg, visit the castle and go to the top of the hill to K�nigstuhl (Kings Chair, Kings Seat). You will see the Neckar River in Heidelberg, but take in the Rhine also. If time permits, take a day trip on it. From Heidelberg, it is about ten miles northwesterly to Ladenburg, a very old village (the Romans were there).
Learn at least some polite German phrases. Can you say �thank you� and �please�? Most of all enjoy yourselves.
A research endeavor was formed at Brigham Young University which is called Molecular Genealogy Research Group. If I may joke a bit, the libraries were running out of shelf space. Since each of us carries around a unique marker that tells who we are, all that is needed is to establish the relationships that would explain where we received the components in our DNA. With a master data base, one could bypass this tedious work of scanning church records in foreign languages and simply pop into a laboratory and donate a little blood. The numbers that come back might tell a person that he is 42 percent German, 37 percent English, 5 percent Irish, 1 percent French, 6 percent Swedish, 4 percent Spanish, and 6 percent Native American.
As a start in building a data base, samples are being collected from around the world on a hundred thousand people for 500 groups. (So far I am one of this group but the MGRG will not be telling me anything about the outcome.)
For each group, it is hoped to establish DNA markers which are unique to the group. When this is done, an individual can compare his/her correlations to these groups. That will broadly define their group affiliations. For this purpose, all of the genes can be used.
Normally, the genes that one has are a mixture of genes that are inherited from both the father and mother. The same father and mother may bestow a different mixture on another of their offspring. Thus, not all of the children are alike. There are two types of genes that are special. A male obtains his Y chromosome from his father only and the mother does not contribute anything to this. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed on only by a mother to all of her children. Her sons, though, do not pass this on. Her daughters do pass on the copy they got from their mother. So mothers and daughters form one line while fathers and sons form another line.
Recently some people claimed they descended from Thomas Jefferson, even though they were not generally recognized as descendants. The Y chromosomes from the claimants, and from proven descendants, were compared. The laboratory results were that the two groups were enough alike to make it probable, at the 95% level, that Thomas was the grandsire of both groups (assuming that the "proven" group was actually descended from Thomas, which was very likely).
The mtDNA studies have led some to postulate that all humans originated in Africa.
If a person compares his DNA to the DNAs of his parents, he should have a high correlation to each of them. This comes about because a person gets about one-half of his DNA from each parent.
One way of learning something is to try and tell someone else about it. That is what I am doing with a few notes on DNA testing. I wasn't very strong on biology in school so I have some catching up to do. The use of DNA testing is growing for a variety of reasons. Anyone with a modest budget and some different samples of DNA can have a comparison made.
The most popular use so far has been the paternity test, to see if an alleged father is the actual father. Most states admit this as strong evidence. It can absolve a man of being the father, or it can force him into child support payments. This is the easiest test to perform. All that is needed are a few cells from the inside of the cheek, or hair follicles, or a few drops of blood (from both the alleged father and the child).
Whatever the ultimate purpose, some DNA is selected, or isolated, and broken into small fragments with enzymes. This is placed on, or in, a gel under the action of an electric field, which exerts a force to move the fragments (because they are charged). The fragments will not all move at the same speed because they have different masses. The different masses come about because there are inert spacer molecules between the active molecules. The number of inert molecules can vary without affecting the genetic action. Typically, the number of inert molecules is inherited from either the mother or father. So most of your fragments should move in the gel at the same speed as either your mother's or your father's; however, over the course of time, variations in the number of spacer molecules does develop.
As an example of DNA testing, three mummies of children were found at 22,000 feet in an ancient (say 1500 AD) Inca ruin. All three were sacrificial victims. Were they siblings? If they were from the same family, in particular the same mother, they would have the same mtDNA (mitochrondrial DNA). The comparison showed they were not siblings and were not even closely related on the maternal side.
A man, woman, and three girls were found in a burial plot in Russia. Were they the Romanov family who had been the last monarchs of Russia? The DNA testing of the man showed that he was the Tsar. From his bones, it was possible to compare his DNA with Louise of Hesse Cassel (the grandmother of Nicholas II, the Tsar), with DNA from a great-great-great granddaughter and great-great grandson of Louise. (The son of Nicholas II was not found.)
If one enters into a DNA test, one must be prepared for the unexpected. We can track family relationships and even do comparisons to people long dead.
The most common application for DNA testing is paternity testing. Single mothers who apply for financial aid under the "Aid to Families with Dependent Children" are required to name the alleged father; however, the naming of a man as the father is not sufficient; proof is required. DNA paternity testing can furnish the proof both ways. In 1996, it is estimated that 250,000 paternity tests were made. The number grows with the advertising by the laboratories, increased public awareness, and improvement in the techniques and acceptance of DNA technology in courts. Usually, no other test is as convincing. Some immigration cases, involving a claim to citizenship, have been decided by DNA testing.
THE COMMITMENT TO REQUEST A DNA TEST ON A FAMILY RELATIONSHIP IS CHALLENGING, BECAUSE AN OUTCOME MAY NOT BE THE PREDICTED ONE.
I am using a small book, "How to DNA Test Our Family Relationships?", by Terrence Carmichael and Alexander Kuklin. I am sure there are other books on the subject that can be used by the layman. The authors cite an example of how a result of the testing can be unnerving.
Henry Stanley, 45 years, was a dedicated genealogist with five siblings. Henry had even published a book on the Stanley Family, the results of his investigations. He had suspicions that he and his five siblings might not all have the same father. He convinced two sisters and his mother to participate. While waiting a few weeks for the test results, Henry talked to his mother, who admitted that the 6 children (Henry and his 5 siblings) might not have the same father. Henry sought a known Stanley descendant and found that the known Stanley descendant and Henry probably did not share the same ancestors! Henry wanted then to make a test directly with his father who had been dead for five years. While Henry was debating whether to exhume his "father", his mother admitted that it was possible that none of her children had been sired by her husband. With gentle probing, Henry found the name, Bob McCarthy, of the potential father.
Unfortunately, Bob McCarthy had died but he had left known sons. Bob McCarthy, Jr., agreed to participate in the testing. The tests were positive, in the sense that there was no question that Henry Stanley was a half-sibling of Bob McCarthy, Jr. The net result is that Henry Stanley has started work on a new genealogy of the McCarthy family. (Henry is not really a STANLY - he is a McCARTHY! GWD)
There are several questions that must examined before a DNA test is considered. Do we understand completely what is involved in such tests, and the possible outcomes? Will the test benefit me? Can I keep my existing family relationships?
Though I seem to be going astray from the Germanna Colonies, DNA testing will become more routine in genealogy studies in the future. It won't hurt us to start thinking about it, even if we do not expect to employ such a test itself.
One of our Germanna families is the Mauck family. Some members lived in the Germanna community and married other people in the Germanna families. Actually, there are several families in America, not necessarily related, who share similar names such as Mock, Mack, Mauk, Mauck, etc. Because some of the names are so close to other names, it is possible that individuals have shifted in the spelling of their names making it difficult to sort the branches which might be quite distinct from each other.
The spring issue of the "Mock Family Historian" announced a project to study the DNAs of participants in a program aimed to sort the branches. First, it is limited to male individuals, but a woman can participate by having a brother or a father act as a proxy. One laboratory will be doing all of the work and the cost per individual will be $99, including the discount because of the volume of work that is anticipated. A twelve-point marker will be used in the test (later notes will explain this more, I hope). A nine-marker test, which has less resolving power would cost only $60.
A participant must sign a release form allowing the lab to use his DNA. Participants will be issued an identity number. One can check online to see how closely he matches other participants. Eventually, I would presume, someone will attempt to sort out the patterns or groups which will appear and perhaps issue names (if participants are willing).
The DNA being test is the Y chromosome that a son inherits from his father, unchanged usually for several generations. Over time, some small differences may develop. The number of differences is an estimate of the number of generations that the common ancestor is removed.
There is little point in two male first cousins (from a common Mock grandfather) both participating as they will tend to show the same values in the twelve point test. If a lot of people do participate then a good data base will be built which will be very useful in future years. When this data base does exist, a new-comer who wonders where he fits into the Mock picture could have the answer by doing a simple DNA test. It could say, for example, that the newbie is descended from Johann Georg Mauck, who came to America in 1737.
The test is very simple for a person to perform. The laboratory mails a few items to the participant and he swabs his oral gum line. The swabs are mailed back to the lab. Nothing very difficult, and no blood to mess with.
Some people may turn out not to be Mocks at all. Suppose one Mock couple took a baby in and raised him as they own. They might have given him their name, and his descendants might have assumed that they were from a Mock family. Therefore, if one enters a test like this, one must be prepared for the unexpected.
Since I wrote the last note on the Mock family DNA testing, another "Mock Family Historian" has come in the mail and it has some preliminary results. Six people have their results back. Each of them identified a different ancestor who is named below. There are twelve test scores for each person.
Person 1, from Jacob Mock: 12, 23, 14, 10, 13, 19, 11, 15, 12, 14, 11, 31
To be considered as closely related, at least eleven of the twelve scores should match. Clearly, Person 1 and Person 2 are not closely related.
Let's add Person 3
Person 3, from J. W. Mack: 13, 23, 14, 11, 11, 14, 12, 12, 12, 13, 13, 29
Person 3 is not related closely to the either of the first two persons.
The next ancestor is a Germanna citizen, Daniel Mauck, born 1740 in VA.
Person 4, from Dan Mauck: 13, 24, 14, 10, 11 15, 12, 12, 12, 13, 13, 29
Still no cigar, but Person 4 is more closely related to Person 3 than to Person 1 or to Person 2.
Person 5 claims Jos. Alex. Mock as an ancestor, and he is stuck there in 1822 in VA.
Person 5, from J. A. Mock: 13, 24, 14, 11, 11, 15, 12, 12, 12, 13, 13, 29
Comparing Person 4 and Person 5, we see there is a good match there. They may be considered to share the same ancestor, including Daniel being an ancestor of Joseph Alexander (or the common ancestor could have been hundreds of years ago).
Person 5 should concentrate on the history of Daniel Mauck. Notice the different spellings in these two ancestral names.
Person 6 claims Hans Maag, who was born in 1594 in Switzerland.
Person 6, from Hans Maag: 13, 24, 14, 11, 11, 16, 12, 12, 11, 13, 13, 29
I am a rank beginner at this but it looks to me as if Persons 4, 5, and 6 may have some ancestors in common, even though no two of the three spell their name the same.
Generally, a match in eleven or twelve of the scores is considered as proof of a common ancestor, but the match says nothing about how far back the common ancestor lived. A good match does not say when the two lines split apart.
An expanded set of tests can be made when closeness seems to exist. Thirteen additional tests can furnish a better clue as to the degree of the relationship between two persons.
[What this means, is that, if no closeness seems to exist, additional tests would not be worthwhile; however, if there is a match of 11 or 12 test scores (out of 12), then further testing could establish how close the degree of relationship is between two persons, and could narrow down the lines of descent. GWD]
In the Mock family DNA study which is still relatively young, two of the six participants had interesting results in ways that had not been anticipated. The two individuals who had a close match, using the ancestors Daniel Mauck and Joseph Alexander Mock, had an unexpected dividend. The lab doing the testing reported that "Jim" had an exact match to three other families other than Mock, namely Dyas, Devine, and Mitchell. "Doug" was told that he had an exact match to five other families, Mitchell, Weller (2), Pack, and Baker.
The lab maintains a data base of all of the families (individuals) that it tests and informs participants when matches are made to families other than the one being tested; however, the lab will not disclose the names of the other participants unless the party is willing that his name be given out.
Jim and Doug had perfect matches to the Mitchell family even though they did not have perfect matches between themselves on the names Daniel Mauck and Joseph Alexander Mock. This came come about in the following way.
The rate of change of the Y genes is probabilistic. There is an average rate of change, say one of the markers gains or loses a "point" every two centuries. That is, about every six individuals in a line of descendant there will be a small change in the gene. (I am making these numbers up for illustrative purposes.) It is possible that a gene could go unchanged for a thousand years. It is also possible that going from a grandfather to a father to a son could have two changes, though this would be rare.
This average rate of change applied to a large sample of people leads to a prediction of when Adam and Eve lived. I have read that number recently but I can't find it right now. The predicted value is measured in the tens of thousands of years. Given that we have differences now, and knowing the average rate of change of the genes, it is possible to work out the time to when there was only one Y gene, Adam's.
For another example of a family DNA study, see the web page that Sgt. George gave us yesterday morning for the LOVETT family. (I had some trouble using Netscape to get this but it came through on Internet Explorer.)
A reader sent a reference to the genetic research that the Pennington Family is conducting, see: Pennington Research Association. Portions of this are very interesting, and, even though some new terminology is introduced, the gist of the story is evident. I copy some of it here:
When the male Y chromosome is analyzed, the majority of the UK [United Kingdom] population (68%) falls into a large group called Haplogroup 1 (HG1), but in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales this rises to 90%. The Haplogroup is defined by a set of very slowly mutating groups of bases at locations that reveal deep ancestry, well before surnames were adopted. These classifications are so broad that they are not very useful for family reconstruction studies, but knowing your HG can be fun because it appears to correlate with an early tribe of Europe (Saxon, Jute, Dane, Viking, etc.). It is also useful to the extent that if two Penningtons have different HG's then they must be very distantly related in that they came from different European populations.
The HG can be hinted at by looking at the 12 numbers that were measured for each individual. It turns out that a specific group of six repeat numbers tend to occur frequently only in certain Haplogroups, thus one can guess from the data, with good confidence, at the HG of the individual; without actually measuring the HG defining mutations.
There is a signature called the "Atlantic Modal Haplotype" (AMH), which is a subset of the group HG1, and is found frequently on the Atlantic coast of Europe. [The Pennington] results suggest that the six related Pennington groups are almost certainly HG1 (called HG 1.15+). In fact all of our family groups tested so far are HG1, with the exception of Group 33 (HG2, more properly a subset of this group called 2.47+) and Group 6, that we do not know how to classify, based on our current understanding. As expected with hindsight, many other families are getting such AMH matches. This means that the other six loci (numbers) that were tested are the important ones in assigning families to groups with common ancestors. The scientific literature to date suggests that the AMH (and our six related groups) seem to indicate ancestry in the original population of the UK before 800 AD. In other words, Celts or Ancient Britons.
The result for Group 33 is predicted to be HG 2.47+, and considered likely to be Viking or Norman (considering the part of the UK from which this family originated). A recent genetic survey of the UK population, at Viking Genetics Survey Results
, found that, although HG 2.47+ was common in Norway, it was also present in North Germany, where Anglo_Saxons originated, and so differentiation was difficult. Only 18% of the UK population are HG2, but 50% of present Norwegians are HG2.
Another meaningful site is The Mumma Surname DNA Project, which has some good material.
In the last note I sent a URL for Doug Mumma's research paper. It�s on the WorldWideWeb and the family is Mumma, and they have organized into a research group. Doug Mumma, who is the author of the research paper, does a very good of writing and presenting the data. It is not hard to follow him, for his explanations and charts make things very clear. It is to be expected, for Doug is a Germanna descendant. [Note to Thom: He could be an interesting future speaker at a seminar, even though he would be talking about the Mumma family, apparently a German family, but not a Germanna family.]
Somewhere in my recent reading, I came across an interesting statistic. Researchers into genetic heredity have come to believe that the probability that a specified father is the actual biological father is only about 0.95 to 0.98. That is, if we could know, in a thousand instances where a child is born, the specified father will not be the true biological father in about 20 to 50 cases. Let us now suppose that it is eight generations back to a Revolutionary War soldier from a living descendant. The odds that the soldier is actually the ancestor of a descendant today is only about two out of three if we take the lower odds above. There is a challenge coming up for the patriotic societies.
At the Germanna Seminar I spoke about probabilities. Perhaps I did not even realize then how problematic much of our history is. But the Pennington research I referred in the last note leads one to pay more attention to the general history and less to the details which may be wrong.
Tomorrow, I will be at the Hans Herr House doing a tour of duty. I do this about once a month. I have no connection with Hans Herr, or the Mennonites in general, but I just like the things they are doing there. Like a lot of organizations, they depend on volunteer labor to put the show on. On September 16, I will be a speaker at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society at the Willow Street Mennonite Church, which is down the road from the Hans Herr House about a half mile. I will be talking about the first permanent settlement of Germans in Virginia. So far as I know, I believe the meeting is an open meeting.
Speaking of volunteer labor, another issue of Beyond Germanna went in the mail yesterday. The lead article is by Andreas Mielke, with the title, �No Man-Eaters in Virginia�. To say anything more would be to steal Andreas� story line. I wrote some about Ortssippenb�cher for Germany. Betty Johnson wrote about the descendants of John Yager of South Carolina. Her list of references runs to about as much as the article itself. Linda Nelson and I went together to do a short piece on the Battern family of Madison County. Cathi Clore Frost clarified some points regarding the children of Michael Clore and Margaret Weaver. Finally there are a couple of pages of photographs of Neuenb�rg and of Eisern.
A question was asked as to possible testing laboratories for DNA studies. I cite some names from Doug Mumma's investigation and interested readers should read his web page to be found at www.mumma.org/dna.htm. Two of the laboratories that he mentioned are GeneTree, Inc., and Family Tree DNA, Inc. Both of these are now doing genealogical testing. There are probably more.
Some workers in the field of Y chromosome research believe that the mutation rate for one site on a Y-chromosome is about 0.2% or about once in 500 generations. If you test several factors, or sites, say 12, the observed rate of change would be much higher than this. There is a lot of stability in the Y-chromosome.
Probably, when man first migrated to Europe, say 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, the Y-chromosomes were very similar for all the migrants. They could be said to have a common haplotype or "fingerprint". As time went by, groups developed differences, which are recognizable today. The group that first moved to the British Isles was pushed to the north and the west by later groups. This first group, now known as the Celts, has a characteristic pattern that is different. If do your testing in Scotland or in Wales, you will be much more likely to find a different pattern than if you do your testing south of London, which even differs from the east coast of England.
Because these patterns are so slow to change, especially in comparison to surnames, one will find that many surnames share the larger or broader patterns, even while the patterns maintain enough identity or similarity to permit group identification.
This will introduce another element into genealogy, the identification of groups and tribes, as opposed to surname tracing. But we must remember in doing this that we are tracing only the male line, not all of the lines. For example, the group of my male descent might trace itself back through Austria to even Turkey. But this is only a small fraction of my genetic makeup. I could probably trace some mixed male-female lines back to every group that ever existed in Europe. The techniques are not able to do this just yet.
Doug Mumma comments that the origins of the Mumma family were not certain. In the DNA study of the family, two German families matched the broader American group. (Two Estonian Mumma families did not match at all.) Depending on the history of these two German families, it might be evidence that the Mumma family did originate in Germany.
This may be a valuable technique to sort out whether members of a particular Thomas family (a family which is to be found in every nationality) are English, German, Irish, or what have you. Or the Smiths or the Durmans.
Douglas Mumma wrote to me today and filled me in concerning ongoing projects of his. First, he has revised his opinion about the testing laboratories, and he favors Family Tree DNA. His experience with GeneTree, Inc., was not entirely favorable.
More results have come in on the Mumma DNA project and Doug is revising his report. Watch the Mumma web page for an update. Very happily, he says that the latest results only confirm the initial results. He has become a firm believer in the power and usefulness of DNA testing to genealogical purposes.
Perhaps because the evidence in the Mumma project was so helpful, Doug has become involved in the Gatter project, which is related to his wife. She herself cannot be tested in the same way that Doug was because it must be with a male subject. However, she can have a brother take the test and what she learns from that will apply to her.
In the Gatter project, it had been hoped to determine if the Gatters of England, and the Gatters of Germany, were related. A determination was made that the two families are not related. In fact, there was much diversity within each national group. This could arise because the surname of Gatter is an occupational name and many different people might have taken up the name just because they were all engaged in the occupation of "gate keeping".
(In England, some "gate keepers", especially those who "kept the gates" for Royalty, became known as "YATES", or "YEATES". GWD)
A word of warning to us lies in the results of the Gatter project. Mrs. Mumma had a match to one Gatter family in the region where her ancestor lived. Yet another Gatter family who lived only ten miles away from that Gatter family did not match at all. Physical proximity in combination with a name, even one which is not a common name, does not insure a relationship to any degree.
Doug thinks there are some marvelous opportunities within the Germanna community. He has in mind an ancestral family of his, the Jager/Yager/Yeager group. As we have observed on the list here recently, DNA testing might help sort some of the branches of this family. But, because the name is not unusual, a more elaborate (and more expensive) test might be required. Instead of 12 markers, perhaps 25 markers might be appropriate.
This is Labor Day and I will cut it short even after I copied most of this note from Doug. Thanks, Doug.
If DNA is controversial, I will switch to religion which may be less so. For variety, as much as anything, I will relate a story on the Hutterites in the Feb/Mar year 2000 issue of German Life, a magazine. Many people compare the Hutterites to the Anabaptists, or, in particular, to the Amish and the Mennonites. A distinguishing characteristic is their communal life.
"Whats mine is thine", the German-speaking Hutterites believe. But, communal life goes beyond that, as they eat, worship, and attend school together, even though women sit on one side, and men on the other side. After segregation by sex, they order themselves by position and age.
Though they seek no converts to their agrarian way of life, their large families keep the 500-year-old faith strong numerically. Many of the Hutterites colonies are to be found in our Dakotas and in Canada.
In Europe, their history is similar to the general Anabaptist history, where they brought down the wrath of the state and established churches for their belief in adult baptism and pacifism. A colony was established at Austerlitz as a refuge. Their leader was Jacob Hutter, from whom they took their name. Jacob was captured, taken to Innsbruck, and executed in 1536.
In spite of setbacks such as this, the group flourished for a while as estate farmers and workers. They were also noted for their pottery. But oppression fell on them severely, and they moved from Moravia, to Hungary, to Moravia, to Slovakia, to Transylvania, to Wallachia, and to Moldavia. In 1770, they found refuge in Russia under Catherine the Great, who granted them exemption from military service, control of their schools, and freedom of religion. The Russian seal on the agreement said, "Eternity to eternity to eternity." Eternity lasted 100 years, and in 1870, when Alexander II revoked Catherine's edict, the Hutterites fled to the prairies of North America, where they bought land.
Some of the people elected to have their own land, as opposed to the communal land. They often associated with the Mennonites. The Hutterites practice an open door policy, in that anyone can leave who wishes to do so. As the colonies grew, they generally created daughter colonies when the parent colony reached about 150 people.
During World War I, their pacifism did not agree with their neighbors' views. The pressure was so great that sixteen of the seventeen American colonies moved to Canada. During the Great Depression, South Dakota offered inducements to lure the Hutterites back. Several colonies did return. World War II brought another crisis, but conscientious objectors could take up alternative service. In general this has been the response of the Hutterites to the draft.
[Continuing with the Hutterites]
After the end of WW II, the Hutterites prospered. From the original three colonies, they have grown to about 300 colonies in Canada, and 135 in the United States. Division in the US is 60 in South Dakota, 60 in Montana, 6 in Minnesota, and 4 in Washington. Their total population is about 60,000.
They hold to the original principles of adult baptism, avoiding oaths, consider the Lord's Supper as a memorial, and maintaining a separation from the world. They do, though, welcome visitors. They believe that it will be better for outsiders to understand them better. One colony, Hutterville, near Stratford, South Dakota, specializes in tours of their settlement. When the mother colony of Hutterville split in 1982, no one knew in advance how people would be divided. The decision was made by casting lots.
Hutterville is a small village of 105 people. It has its own electricity generator, fire engine, grain elevator, geothermal heating and cooling system, beehives, schoolhouse, and cemetery. It has a well-equipped mechanical shop, carpentry shop, and metal shop. There are very few services that they must go outside for.
The farm operation itself has 7,000 acres in production for corn, wheat, and soybeans. They try to be as organic as possible. They tend 12,000 hogs, 200 beef cows, and 120 milk cows. One man is the minister and acts as the spokesperson to the outside world. The farm boss delegates agricultural work, and the steward approves purchases. There are sub-bosses beneath the top. The women have a chief cook and chief gardener. Throughout the colony, modern equipment is used.
A whistle summons them to dinner, which is eaten in a communal dining hall, men on one side, and women on the other. Within each group, seating is by age and rank. Children 15 and under have a separate dining room.
Education begins at two and a half years, with an introduction to German songs and prayers, and to group cooperation. At age five, the students begin German School, to learn Hutterite tenets, and the High German language. This goes on, at two hours per day, for ten years. They admit to using a Tirolean-German dialect in everyday affairs (unique to them with no written form), but they use High German in their sermons and songbooks. Then there are eight years of English school. At Hutterville, they used certified teachers, in an effort to raise the educational level. Students are encouraged to complete 12 grades of school. Some look forward to even higher levels of education.
Nothing takes precedence over religious practice. The members meet every day for worship, and twice on Sunday. The church is devoid of any decorations.
I left off with recounting how the Hutterites were thriving and growing in numbers. It would not seem that they do this by enticing new members to join. Nearly all, say 99.9 percent, of their numerical growth comes through internal additions.
A popular question often asked by outsiders is, "How are marriages arranged?" The answer is that the boy and the girl do the arranging. There is one general rule to be followed. The boys court girls from another colony, not their own colony. If a boy and a girl do decide to marry, the colony as a whole makes the wedding arrangements, not the parents. Friends decorate the hall (church), prepare a dinner, pass out favors, and perform humorous skits. After marriage, the new wife will join her husband in his colony.
In spite of the obvious attempt to prevent the boy and the girl from being too closely related, the lines are, as we sometimes say, inbred. A DNA study of them would show the same ancestors over and over again. As a consequence, some genetic problems do occur. In the Hutterite community, it is rare to have a good pair of eyes.
Small communities do degenerate in their genetic heritage. The Amish, another fairly close group who has admitted very few outsiders for centuries, has genetic problems also.
The information on the Hutterites came from "German Life", a magazine dedicated to helping English-speaking people become better acquainted with Germans. Sometimes, the articles will have a story about what Germans have done in America.
The Hutterites are a branch of the Anabaptists who are quite independent of the Amish and the Mennonites. The Anabaptists generally came in to existence in the decade after Martin Luther tacked his theses to the door. They were at their strongest in Switzerland, where the Reformed Church became very soon the State Church. The civil and the religious leaders opposed the Anabaptists actively, even to the extent of killing many of them. Another strategy was to expel the Anabaptists from Switzerland. This went on for two hundred years, even up to 1700.
About 1702, a Switzer by the name of Franz Michel thought that the Swiss might be able to establish colonies in America. He never expressly said that he had the Anabaptists in mind, but, when he and Graffenried did arrange to send some Swiss to America, there were Anabaptists in the group. In his explorations in America, Michel said that he had found silver. To pursue this, he needed miners. To find miners, an agent went to Siegen where he found willing people.
So, had the Anabaptists never arisen in Switzerland, there never would have been Germanna Colonists.
The Hutterites, as a group, perhaps have the best-known genealogy for its members of any group of an equal size. Of the 35,000 to 45,000 members today, they can all trace their ancestry to fewer than 90 ancestors who lived in the early 1700s to early 1800s. For the present, any relationships among these 90 ancestors are unknown but they probably existed.
Some people believe that no two Hutterites are more remotely related than fifth or sixth cousins. The average index of relatedness is about one and a half cousins. Even if it appears, on the surface, that two people are no more closely related than fourth cousins, they are probably nearer to first or second cousins. This comes about because if two people are fourth cousins by eight different paths, then this is equivalent, I think, to about a first cousin relationship. Or stated differently, the traditional ways of measuring relatedness are not adequate.
Some say the colonies of Hutterites in South Dakota are descendants of no more than 64 ancestors. If one had true diversity, then three centuries ago one would have 512 ancestors (33 years per generation). If this person married, the spouse would come close to having a different set of 512 ancestors (a few duplications would probably exist). Any two Hutterites today have far fewer names in their individual ancestry, and are very likely to share many of these ancestors.
Geneticists have been drawn to the Hutterites because they all live almost the same life under well known conditions. No alcohol, no tobacco. Relatively clean environment on the prairies. Asthma studies have been conducted to see if genetics is important. Six known cases of multiple sclerosis in Hutterites have common ancestors in 1723, which suggests an inheritable disease.
A few snippets from web pages about the Hutterites:
There is an unusual mix of medical traits that seems to be unique to the Hutterites. Medical evidence suggests a higher incidence of some genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Thus, Hutterite populations are being studied by geneticists and medical teams. They are seeking the genetic markers for these and other genetic diseases. They also are interested in determining the genetic basis for the unusual immune system resistence the Hutterite population has to certain infectious diseases like chicken pox. In designing their experiments and conducting their tests, geneticists depend upon detailed Hutterite genealogy to select and link all their donors to a common ancestor.
We have words to describe the degree of relatedness. How close is a full-bloodied sibling? Two siblings have four grandparents in common. This is the gene pool that they are sharing. So, of the 1024 genes that we might say the grandparents in total have, each sibling could have any one of these genes. Which is just another way of saying they share in all of the genes. So the gene sharing of the siblings is 100%. They do not have the same genes; each sibling is different. But the pool that they draw from is the same. In theory, but it is a remote possibility, two siblings could be identical from the random assignment of the genes.
The only thing closer than normal siblings are identical twins. Not only do they share in the same gene pool, with the possibility of having the same genes, they actually, as an accident of nature, do have the same genes. Cloning yields identical twins by a slightly different process. Twins, or cloning, are, as the mathematicians say, the identity operator. You operate on A and get B, an identical copy.
Excepting the twins and clones, siblings are the closest relationship possible. They share 100% of the available gene pool.
Let us take two half-siblings. They share only two of the four grandparents. Their degree of relatedness is 50%. The gene pool that is common to each one is 50% of the total gene pool at the grandparent level.
Now let us consider first cousins. They share two of the four grandparents that each of them has. So first cousins have the same degree of relatedness that half-siblings do. Their sharing in the gene pool is 50%.
Next, let us take double-first cousins as arose when Michael K�fer married the widow Anna Maria (Blankenbaker) Thomas. Now Michael�s sister Apollonia had married John Nicholas Blankenbaker, the brother of Anna Maria (Blankenbaker) Thomas. So we have a brother and sister marrying a sister and brother, respectively. (It could have been two brothers marrying two sisters also.) All of the children of these two couples share the same four grandparents. That is the gene pool which is available, in principle, to each one of them. In other words they share 100%, the same as siblings. Thus, siblings and double-first cousins are equivalent.
The next step away, after siblings or double-first cousins, is half-siblings and first cousins at 50%.
Here is the homework assignment. Suppose two people, at the fifth generation earlier than they are, have four ancestral pairs in common. Hint: How many ancestral pairs are there at the previous fifth generation? What fraction of these are shared?
In the fifth previous generation we have these slots, to work our way up slowly:
where the number in the parentheses is the number of previous generations. So, at the fifth generation previous, we have 16 pairs of ancestors. If two people have four of these in common, their common DNA is 4/16 or 1/4 or 25%.
First cousins were 50%. Second cousins have 4 pairs of great-grandparents and they share one pair of these. Their common DNA is 25%.
Our hypothetical example, of the last note, in which two people share four pairs of ancestors, at the great-great-great-grandparent level, would be equivalent to being second cousins.
In the case of the Hutterites, where there are lots of sixth, fifth, fourth, and, perhaps, third cousin relationships between two people, there is a situation where the net relationship is close to a second cousin relationship, or, perhaps, even a first cousin relationship.
A close kin relationship can come about because the common ancestors were near in time, or it can come about because there are lots of paths to more distant ancestors.
[I thought that I should interrupt the current series to bring you this bulletin.]
European Union Commissioners have announced that agreement was reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement, and has accepted a five-year phased-plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one fewer letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the state where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v".
During the fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords containing "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
Und efter ze fifz yer, we vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
[I send Bud Zomas my zanks for sending zis to me.]
(I gues zere is not much us of runing a spel check on zis.)
It is time to grade the homework. Joy came up with a hypothetical problem which I may not understand fully. Her suggested answer is in the ball park, in that her answer is greater than 0% and less than 100%. So far, good.
Her problem was this. She and a cousin both go back to two brothers who married two sisters at the fourth great-grandparent level. The gene pool in total would be at the level one more generation than this. So by the time we get back to then, they each would have 128 pairs of ancestors.
Let's work this out in detail. Joy and her cousin each have one set of parents, two sets of grandparents, four sets of great-grandparents, eight sets of g-g-grandparents, sixteen sets of g-g-g-grandparents, thirty-two sets of g-g-g-g-grandparents. This is the level at which two brothers married two sisters. To get to the common gene pool we need to go one more level at which there are 64 sets of g-g-g-g-g-grandparents. From this total set, two of the sets are in common, namely the parents of the brothers and the parents of the sisters. So the degree of relatedness is 2/64. Just to round this off in an easy to remember number, it is 3% of the genes in the two people today could have a common source. Probably the answer will not be exactly this because there is an element of randomness, but by the law of large numbers it should not deviate much from this.
The problem that Joy proposed went back several generations and the number of ancestors doubles at each generation. The number grows fast. (It is called exponential growth.)
Let us think about another situation together. What is the degree of relatedness between first cousins once removed? We found that first cousins shared 50% of the gene pool. Second cousins, if worked out, would share 25% of the gene pool. First cousins once removed could be expected to be somewhere between these two values. I believe the correct answer is 37.5%.
****
Tivolt Zoltan had noticed that we had discussed the Tivolt name here. Before you think the idea (Hungarian origins) is crazy, remember that the eastern border of Austria and the western border of Hungary join. Some of our people are known to have come from Austria. Maybe some came from Hungary.
Tivolts live in southwest Hungary today, especially in the small village called Porrog. Maybe we will have another village to visit.
Linda Nelson brought the Battern family to my attention. I was able to add a little information and perhaps readers here will know more.
There was a marriage in Culpeper County, Virginia, on 11 May 1791, between John Batten (or Battern) and Ann Cook (who might at other times be called Rhoda Ann). At that date, Madison County had not yet been formed, but perhaps the couple lived in the area that became Madison Co.
Some of the points of difficulty include: There is no Battern in the Culpeper Classes for 1781, but this is understandable if John Battern is just coming into a marriageable age in 1791. Coming closer to that time, the Battern family does not appear in the 1787 Personal Property Tax List for Culpeper Co. Then there is no Cook genealogy, recognized or unrecognized, that has an Ann Cook among the German families.
There is some reason to think that Ann Cook might have been from the Germanna Cook family. On the 12th Sunday after Trinity in 1791, a communicant at the German Lutheran Church is Anna Battern. This would be after the marriage in May, so this Anna Battern is probably the Ann Cook of the marriage license.
There are two Cook families with children old enough to marry in 1791. Basically, these are the families of Adam Cook, who married Barbara Fleshman, and of George Cook, who married, first, Mary Sarah Reiner, and, second, Anna Maria Hoffman. George's children are fairly well known from the church and estate records. In George's first family, there is only one son, Lewis, who marries in 1793. The sons in the second family are too young for consideration.
In the family of Adam Cook, the sons seem to be marrying about the 1780 time frame and later so they could hardly be the parents of Ann who marries in 1791.
It is said that the Adam Cook and George Cook were the only two sons of Michael Cook, because Michael only gave land to these two Cook men. Michael did give land to his two daughters and their husbands so his family is considered to be these four children. Of the these four families, Adam's is the least certain.
On my crib sheet for the Cook family, there is no Ann Cook. In the next note, I will look at evidence that perhaps Ann Cook does belong here, and, in particular, she belongs in the family of Adam Cook. As always, comments are invited.
Was the Ann Cook who married John Battern a member of the Cook Germanna family? I believe so, for the following reasons.
At her one appearance at the German Lutheran church as a Battern, she is sitting between Margaret Fleshman and Barbara Cook on one side, and Magdalena Hirsch (i.e., Deer) and Joseph Snider. (I use English spellings here.)
Let us assume for the moment that Ann Cook is the daughter of Adam Cook who married Barbara Fleshman. Margaret Fleshman would be a first cousin of Anna Cook Battern. Barbara Cook would be a sister. Joseph Snider would be another first cousin. The Anna Magdalena Hirsch was confirmed in 1789, but she is not otherwise identified. Three of the four people very nicely confirm that Ann Battern was indeed a daughter of Adam Cook. (I am assuming that Michael Cook had only two sons, Adam and George.)
Ann Cook would probably have been born about 1774, to judge by her confirmation in 1790 which was a typical age for confirmation (16). It would also fit with the birth of her children later. And it gives her an age at marriage of 17. The children of John Battern and Ann Cook were:
There are several good Germanna names in the above. Perhaps others can add to the information.
According to the Culpeper County, Virginia, marriage licenses, Ann Cooke married Jno. Ballesu. Linda had interpreted his name as Batten or Battern. This was in 1791. There was an Anna Battern in the German Lutheran Church, and, from the people she was sitting with, it is very believable that she was the daughter of Adam Cook. Gloria said in a post to the GERMANNA COLONIES Mailing List at Rootsweb that she thought Anna Smith married William Custer. Perhaps she will fill us in with her evidence. Before we are done, we may have a good story. After all, that is what this list should be about.
The question was asked whether Elizabeth Cook was a daughter of Adam Cook, and did she marry Samuel Snyder. There was an Elizabeth Cook who was the daughter of GEORGE Cook. She was born in 1758, and she appeared at the church, as a communicant, in 1775, 1776, 1776, 1777, and 1778. Then there are no more Elizabeth Cooks at church until 1794. The first Elizabeth Cook has no known marriage, and was dead by 1805. It would seem likely that she died shortly after 1778.
The Elizabeth of 1794 is probably either a daughter of Adam (brother of George), or the wife of a son of Adam or George. George had no daughter-in-law named Elizabeth until 1804. Adam's son, Adam, Jr., married an Elizabeth. There is no marriage license for Adam, Jr., in either Culpeper or Madison County. His wife could have been the Elizabeth Cook who was present in 1794.
Adam Koch, Jr., (i.e., Cook) was alone in 1776, 1776, and 1777 and never makes another appearance as a communicant at the church. I would doubt that the Elizabeth Koch of 1794 was his wife. So I assign the 1794 Elizabeth Koch as a daughter of Adam Cook, Sr.
The suggestion has been made that she married Samuel Snyder, her first cousin. There is a marriage in Culpeper Co., after Madison Co. had been formed, of Isaac Wilson and Eliz. Cooke. This would be outside of the Robinson River Valley where Adam Cook lived.
Samuel Snyder attended church in 1789, 1790, 1791, 1791, and 1792 by himself. In 1798, he attended with wife Elizabeth. In 1802 he was alone, but in 1810 and 1812 Elizabeth accompanied him. In 1794, Elizabeth Cook attended by herself, but not at any later time as Elizabeth Cook. This suggests that these two people might have married in the period 1794 to 1798.
Consulting the Madison County marriage licenses, Elizabeth Cook married Samuel Snyder on 5 Sept 1796. Was Elizabeth the daughter of Adam Cook, Sr.? The marriage license does not mention the consent of any parents, so Elizabeth was born before '75. It seems doubtful, but it cannot be assumed without more research, that Elizabeth was not a granddaughter of Adam, Sr.
(Thanks to Andreas Mielke for bringing this to my attention.)
Press release of the Melungeon Heritage Association..................
Kingsport, Tennessee, June 20, 2002
The Melungeons are a group of people of unknown origin first documented in the mountains of Appalachia in the early 19th century. Many believed they were of mixed racial ancestry and the Melungeons faced legal and social discrimination. As a result, they tended to live in remote areas, most notably Newman's Ridge in Hancock County, Tennessee. In the 1940s and 1950s, sociologists and anthropologists labeled the Melungeons and other similar groups as "tri-racial isolates". Over the years, numerous myths, legends, and theories evolved to explain the Melungeons' mysterious origins. These legends often involved sailors and explorers from Spain, Portugal, Carthage, or Phoenicia who were stranded on the American continent and intermarried with Indians. The Melungeons themselves often claimed to be "Portyghee". Most researchers believed they were a product of intermarriage between English and Scots-Irish settlers, Indians, and free African-Americans, and discounted their claims of Mediterranean origin. The DNA results announced today confirmed that the Melungeons have European, African, and Native American ancestry, as well as genetic similarities with populations in Turkey and northern India.
More surprising, however, is the fact that some of these Turkish- and northern Indian-like sequences have been passed through the Melungeons' maternal lines, indicating that their overseas ancestors included not only male sailors and explorers, but females as well.
(John here) One quick observation is that the Portugese traders and sailors did get around in the world.
This will be a short note as I am going out (Monday) to Lancaster County here in Pennsylvania to give a talk to the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society.
(As of 12 April 2007, John published the last of his "Germanna Notes"; however, he is going to periodically post to the GERMANNA_COLONIES Mailing List in the form of "Genealogy Comments" on various subjects, not necessarily dealing with Germanna. I'm starting the numbering system anew, starting with Comment Nr. 0001.)
(20 Aug 02)
Nr. 1452:
(21 Aug 02)
Nr. 1453:
�My husband has a conference in Heidelberg in September and we are planning on staying an extra week to do some sightseeing. When you were there, did you use the train or did you have a rental car? Did you take any guided tours, or just explore on your own? Did you speak German or need to speak German fluently?�
(From a John Broyles and Ursula Ruop descendant.)
Neuenb�rg (Blankenbakers, Fleshmans, Scheibles, Thomases),
Sulzfeld (Zimmerman, Kabler),
Zaberfeld (Kaifers),
Schwaigern (Willheits, Cooks, Reiners),
Gemmingen (Smiths, Clores, Weavers),
etc.
(22 Aug 02)
Nr. 1454:
(23 Aug 02)
Nr. 1455:
(24 Aug 02)
Nr. 1456:
(26 Aug 02)
Nr. 1457:
(27 Aug 02)
Nr. 1458:
Person 2, from Joel T. Mock: 12, 22, 14, 10, 13, 14, 11, 14, 12, 12, 11, 28
(28 Aug 02)
Nr. 1459:
The Y chromosome genes do not change very often. That is the whole basis of the test. Hundreds of years may go by without any change. There may have been a common ancestor hundreds of years ago, before there were surnames. As surnames were introduced, some of the people took the name Mitchell and some took the name Mock/Mauck. There are other possibilities.
For Jim and Doug to have perfect matches to a member of the Mitchell family, but not to each other, it must be the case that two Mitchells are involved who are closely related.
(29 Aug 02)
Nr. 1460:
(30 Aug 02)
Nr. 1461:
(31 Aug 02)
Nr. 1462:
(02 Sep 02)
Nr. 1463:
(03 Sep 02)
Nr. 1464:
(04 Sep 02)
Nr. 1465:
(05 Sep 02)
Nr. 1466:
(06 Sep 02)
Nr. 1467:
Because of their isolated and self-dependent communal life, Hutterites are perhaps the most genetically homogeneous group of persons in North America. Almost all Hutterites derive from a list of about two dozen surnames, including:
(07 Sep 02)
Wurz
Knels
Decker
Waldner
Walter
Wollman
Miller
Glanzer
Hofer
Stahl
Wipf
Enz
Gross
Kleinsasser
Mandel
Pullman
Tschetter
Nr. 1468:
(09 Sep 02)
Nr. 1469:
1 set of parents (1)
2 sets of grandparents (2)
4 sets of great-grandparents (3)
8 sets of great-great-grandparents (4)
16 sets of great-great-great-grandparents (5)
(10 Sep 02)
Nr. 1470:
(11 Sep 02)
Nr. 1471:
Different subject. I had an email from Tivolt Zoltan in Hungary. It amazes me what communication has become with the Internet. It also shows the need for Euro-English to help us communicate.
(12 Sep 02)
Nr. 1472:
(13 Sep 02)
Nr. 1473:
1. William, who married Polly Lipp.
Today, some members of the family spell the name as Batton or Batten. The will of John Battern, written in 1818, in Madison County, Virginia, names the four oldest children, and mentions he has minor children (Henry was born only the previous year). The names of the children have been found from marriage and estate records. The child on whom there is the least information is Polly, who sold her share of the inherited land and then disappeared.
2. John, Jr., who married Julia Ann House.
3. Abraham, who married Jane ____.
4. Elizabeth, who married James Taylor.
5. Ephraim, who married Mary Wilhoit.
6. Eli, who married Heatha Wilhoit.
7. James, who married Judith Tanner.
8. Anne, who married John W. Rush.
9. Polly, who married ____ Gallihugh.
10. Rhoda, who married Barnett Rossom.
11. Joel Early, who married Martha Ann Wayman.
12. Henry L., who married Martha Elizabeth Broyles.
(14 Sep 02)
Nr. 1474:
(16 Sep 02)
Nr. 1475:
(End of article.....)
(17 Sep 02)
John and George would like very much to hear from readers of these Germanna History pages. We welcome your criticisms, compliments, corrections, or other comments. When you click on "click here" below, both of us will receive your message. We would like to hear what you have to say about the content of the Notes, and about spelling, punctuation, format, etc. Just click here to send us your message. Thank You!
There is a Mailing List (also known as a Discussion List or Discussion Group), called GERMANNA_COLONIES, at RootsWeb. This List is open to all subscribers for the broadcast of their messages. John urges more of you to make it a research tool for answering your questions, or for summarizing your findings, on any subject concerning the Germanna Colonies of Virginia. On this List, you may make inquiries of specific Germanna SURNAMES. At present, there are about 1200 subscribers and there are bound to be users here who can help you.
If you are interested in subscribing to this List, click here. You don't need to type anything, just click on "Send". You will shortly receive a Welcome Message explaining the List.
This material has been compiled and placed on this web site by George W. Durman, with the permission of John BLANKENBAKER. It is intended for personal use by genealogists and researchers, and is not to be disseminated further.
Pg.101-Comments 0001-0025
