Re: Great-Grandma's ancestors
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In reply to:
Great-Grandma's ancestors
Harvey Petersen 8/11/02
Nr. 586:
Andrew Garr has been discussed in these notes before and a search on the name may be made by the use of the RootsWeb capabilities.Twelve children were born to Andreas Gar and Eva Seidelmann, but only four of these survived.Three of the children died in July of 1727, in Bavaria, where the family originated.The six surviving members arrived on the ship Loyal Judith at Philadelphia on 25 Sept 1732 (Rupp, "Thirty Thousand Names").The family lived for a while in Germantown outside Philadelphia, but moved within a short time to the Robinson River Valley in Virginia.Their reasons for this move are unknown.
The four surviving children were:
John Adam,b. 24 Dec 1711,m. Elizabeth Kaifer,
Rosina,b. 11 Aug 1713,m. Dewald Christler/Crisler,
Lorenz,b. 29 Nov 1716,m. Dorothy Blankenbaker,
Elizabeth Barbara,b. 11 Feb 1730,m. Michael Blankenbaker.
John Adam married Elizabeth Kaifer, several years younger than he, and she was the daughter of Anna Maria Blankenbaker and Michael Kaifer (see the will of Michael Kaifer).Anna Maria was the widow of John Thomas, who died perhaps about 1720.John Adam and Elizabeth were the parents of six children:
Michael,m. Elizabeth Wilhoit,
Ludwig or Lewis,m. Catherine Weaver,
Benjamin,m. Margaret Crigler,
Elizabeth,m. Adam Fisher,
Rosannah,m. Benjamin Dickens,
Mary Magdalena,m. Stephen Fisher.
Elizabeth Wilhoit was the daughter of Adam Wilhoit and Catherine Broyles.
Catherine Weaver was the daughter of Peter Weaver and his wife Elizabeth ?.
Margaret Crigler was the daughter of Nicholas Crigler and Margaret Kaifer.
Adam Fisher and Stephen Fisher were the sons of Lewis Fisher and Anna Barbara Blankenbaker.
I know very little about the Dickens family and perhaps others could add some information about Benjamin Dickens.I do not even know if the Dickens family was German or English.
The Gar/Garr/Gaar family and the Blankenbaker family shared a number of ancestors at this early time, as three of the four children of Andrew Gar and Eva Seidelmann married individuals who had a Blankenbaker ancestor.Since all of the descendants in America who are named Gar/Gaar/Garr have either John Adam or Lorenz (Lawrence) as an ancestor, they also have a Blankenbaker ancestor.Those Garr descendants, through the Fishers, have two Blankenbaker ancestors, Balthasar and Anna Maria.
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Nr. 587:
John Adam Gaar, or more simply Adam Gaar, and his wife Elizabeth (Kaifer) were recorded as communicants at the German Lutheran Church in Culpeper County, Virginia, in late 1775.In fact, they were the first names on page 1 of the volume used to record communicants, confirmations, minutes, and financial records.This probably meant they were sitting in the front pew.Adam's will was written in 1790, and probated in 1793 in the new county of Madison.He would have been 81 or 82 years old at his death.His wife Elizabeth is not mentioned.With the exception that the son Benjamin received some extra goods, the estate was divided evenly among all six children.No grandchildren were mentioned.Among the special items that Benjamin received were a Dutch Bible and a Sermon Book.
It is interesting to see who owed Adam Gaar money:
Absalom Utz owed 16 pounds;
Peter Witham owed 9 pounds;
George Wilhoit (son of Adam) owed almost 55 pounds;
Adam Yager owed 5 pounds;
Lewis Gaar (son) owed 9 pounds;
Moses Deer owed 2 pounds;
Stephen Fisher (son-in-law) owed 9 pounds;
David Crisler (grandson) owed 3 pounds;
Andrew Gaar (nephew) owed almost 3 pounds;
John Miller owed 5 pounds;
Adam Crisler (grandson) owed 9 pounds;
James Haynes owed almost 4 pounds;
Benjamin Dickens (son-in-law) owed 53 pounds;
Benjamin Gaar (son) owed 7 pounds;
Adam Rouse owed 7 pounds.
These obligations were in the form of bonds and notes.Along with eight slaves, the estate of Adam was significant.
The second child of Andreas Gaar and Eva Seidelmann was Rosina, who married Theobald Christler.Theobald's name has been troublesome in the records, probably because it is an unusual name.Pick a spelling and it has probably been used.In fact, I would make no claim that Theobald is the correct form.The last name of Christler is usually simplified to Crisler.Rosina and Theobald were the parents of:
Henry,m. Elizabeth Weaver,
(John) George,m. (Anna) Magdalena Smith,
Adam,m. Elizabeth Crigler,
Leonard,m. Margaret Clore,
David,m. Elizabeth Wayland,
Andrew,
Michael,m. Mary Ann (Thomas) De Bolt,
Catherine,m. Aaron Crigler,
Mary,m. Michael Carpenter,
Elizabeth,m. Michael Wilhoit,
Margaret,m. Adam Clore.
I am following the "Garr Genealogy" in this information.If readers detect an error, please bring your question or statement forward.There are some uncertainties in the above family.
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Nr. 588:
The family of Theobald Crisler and Rosina Gaar was left in doubt in the last note.Consulting the will of Thebald Christler, which was written 20 Feb 1776, we find that he names a wife Rosanna, and sons Henry, George, Adam, Michael, Leonard, and David.He did not name Andrew, perhaps because of an earlier death.He named daughters Catherine Christler, Dorothy Broyles, Mary Carpenter, Elizabeth Wilhoit, and Margaret Clore.The will was witnessed by Michael Souther, Jacob Souther, and Adam Garr.Adam was probably his brother-in-law.Whether the Southers were chosen for any reason other than their convenience is unknown.
So, the Garr Genealogy errs by omitting the daughter Dorothy.Andrew is in limbo.No claim of children for Andrew is made, either, by Garr or by mention in the will.Dorothy will be assigned number 23 in the numbering scheme here.There is some question about the husband of Margaret Clore, but that will be deferred for the present.
Going back to Andreas Gar and his wife Eva Seidelmann, their second son to survive was Lorenz, b. 29 Nov 1716.He married in Virginia, Dorothea Blankenbaker, the daughter of John Nicholas Blankenbühler and his wife Apollonia Kaifer.Four children of Lorenz (Lawrence) and Dorothy are given by Garr, but information beyond the name is given only for two of them.The four were
John Gaar,b. 1744,m. Margaret Wilhoit,
Andrew Gaar,b. 1750,m. Christina Wilhoit,
Eve,
Elizabeth.
The births and baptisms of these third generation children are not recorded in the German Lutheran (later known as Hebron) Church Register, where entries start for a family only if their first child was born after 1750.(Barbara Claxton and Joyce Libes were contributors to this note.)
[The tour season for the Hans Herr House has started and tomorrow I will be a guide there; therefore, I am sending this note early, as I will not have time in the morning.]
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Nr. 589:
The fourth surviving child of Andreas Gar and his wife Eva Seidelmann was Elizabeth Barbara Gaar who was born in Bavaria 11 Feb 1730.In Virginia, she married Michael Blankenbaker, the son of John Nicholas Blankenbaker and Apollonia Kaifer.Michael was the brother of Dorothy Blankenbaker, who married Elizabeth Barbara's brother Lawrence.Seven daughters are given in the book "Garr Genealogy" with estimated birth years (one seems to be known exactly).Using the dates from the book, the seven daughters were:
Jemima,b.1745,m. Michael Crigler (?),m. Absalom Utz,
Mary,b. 1747,m. Daniel Wilhoit,
Margaret,b. 28 Nov 1749,m. John Clore,
Elizabeth,b. 1753,m. John Wilhoit,
Eleanor,b. 1755,m. Elias Crisler,
Christina,b. 1760,m. Ephraim Utz,
Rosanna,b. 1763,m. Lewis Wilhoit.
Several of the estimated birth dates above are in error, some by a significant number of years.Some information on this subject comes, not from birth and baptismal records, but from confirmations at the church.Three of the girls have recorded confirmations, and two of these give the ages of the girls.The confirmation record does not give the parents' names, but the women can be assigned confidently to Michael and Elizabeth Barbara, because no other Blankenbaker family duplicates these names.
Rosanna was confirmed in 1785 at the age of 18 so she was born in 1766/7, not 1763.Eleanor was confirmed at 16 in 1782, so she was born in 1765/6, not 1755.Jemima was confirmed in 1777, age not specified but say 17 which was a typical age.This would make her birth year ca 1760, not 1745.
There is no reason to assign a birth year of 1747 to Mary since her children appear from 1774 to 1788.The birth date given for Margaret is consistent with the appearance of her children.Elizabeth was the second wife of her husband, and children appear from 1768 to 1793.Christina's husband was born ca 1762/3 and they were married in 1783.From the confirmations, the one specific date, ages of the husbands, and appearance of the children, the birth dates that I would assign are:
Margaret 1749,
Elizabeth 1752,
Mary 1754,
Jemima 1760,
Christina 1763,
Eleanor 1765, and
Rosanna 1767.
Under this assignment, Elizabeth Barbara, the mother, would have been 37 when Rosanna, the last child, was born.Also the mother would have been 19 when Margaret was born, not 15 as the Garr Genealogy would have her.
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Nr. 590:
The last note reported that one of the daughters of Michael Blankenbaker and Elizabeth Barbara Gaar was Jemima, who was said to have married Michael Crigler.Researcher Cynthia Crigler has conducted a search for this Michael Crigler and could find no evidence in the civil or church records (see Beyond Germanna, v.10, n.1).We know that the "Garr Genealogy" was in error by fifteen years in the birth date for Jemima.Apparently, the story for her, with respect to a marriage to Michael Crigler, was an error also, and Arthur Crigler, who wrote a Crigler genealogy, carried forward the mistake that had been made in the Garr Genealogy.
In addition to the four children of Andreas Gar and Eva Seidelmann that have been given, there was another daughter, Maria Barbara, born 15 Jul 1728 (in Bavaria), who is said, in the Garr Genealogy, to have died in Philadelphia.Next some evidence will be examined which says that she lived long enough to move to Virginia where she married.
Land grants in the Northern Neck followed a slightly different procedure than land patents from the Crown.In the Northern Neck, a person applied for a warrant and paid his fees.The warrant specified how many acres he had paid for.He took the warrant to a surveyor who measured off the ground for him.(The land may have been marked already as a claim even though it was not officially recognized.)After the warrant was issued, and before the land was surveyed, the warrant, which was a valid claim or title, might be sold or given away.The surveyor often added notes to the warrant.The warrants have been preserved and published by Peggy S. Joiner in several volumes as "Virginia Northern Neck Warrants and Surveys".In volume 2 of this series (for Frederick County), we read the following entry:
"Debold Christler, assignee of Christian Tival, assignee of Andrew Garr 2 Oct 1751 - 6 Jun 1752; south side of South Fork of Shannandoah River adjacent Zachory and Micall Blancumbaker.Chain carriers: Lawr. Garr, Peter Cree."
"Above was a warrent to And. Garr and given to his son-in-law Christian Tival.Surveyed for C. Tival of Culpeper Co."
Andrew Garr could only be Andreas Gar, the patriarch.The next Andrew, his grandson, has an estimated birth date of 1750.Theobald Christler was the son-in-law of Andreas Gar, as was also Michael Blankenbaker.Lawrence Garr was the son of Andreas and a brother-in-law of Theobald and Michael.This much we understand, but the two names, Christian Tival and Peter Cree, are not discussed in the Germanna literature.
If we are to believe the warrant in its obvious reading, Andreas Gar had a son-in-law, Christian Tival, who married a daughter who could only be Maria Barbara.The husbands of the other two daughters, Theobald Christler and Michael Blankenbaker, are given in the warrant and its notes.
In 1751, Maria Barbara would have been 23, which meant that she could have been a mother a few times already.And perhaps she lived longer, as there is little reason to believe that she died then.Possibly there is another whole branch of the Garr family which has been overlooked.The next note will continue this theme.
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Nr. 591:
There seems to be no escape from the conclusion that Andreas Gar had another daughter, Maria Barbara, in Virginia who married Christian Tivall.I would feel better if I could find more records pertaining to Christian Tivall besides the references in "Warrants and Surveys".There are other references in Joyner besides the one in the last note.In volume 1 (Augusta County):
"Lawrence Garr of Culpeper, 4 Jan 1749/50, 3 Feb 1750, on South Fork Shannondoah.Chain carriers:Tivall & Zacharias Blancumbaker."
From volume 3 (Culpeper County) of Joyner:
"Debold Christler, assignee of Christian Tivall; 12 May 1752 - 17 Mar 1752/3; 62 a. On brs. of Robinson River; adj. his own land, Michael Smith, Andrew Gar. CC - Lawrence Gar & Henry Tivall."
Except for the name of Tivall, the names are readily recognizable and logical.My attempts to learn more about the Tivalls, Christian and Henry, have been failures.Searches through indices fail to show the name under either "T" or "D".Perhaps readers have some information.
There was a name in these extracts that was a surprise though it was not unreasonable.That was Peter Cree.Presumably, he was the son of Lawrence Cree.Previously, we had known that Lawrence Cree had a daughter, Rebecca, who received all of his property in 1758 and 1762.Peter must have been a son who was one of the two tithes in the Lawrence Cree family in 1739, hence at least 16 at that time.Eleven years later (see the previous note) he would have been 27 years old.Probably he was married and the chances are excellent that his wife was from within the Garr/Christler/Tivall complex.Since his father, Lawrence Cree, did not leave property to any grandchildren in 1758 or 1762, it might be assumed that Peter Cree had no heirs.But such assumptions make bad genealogy.
The warrants and surveys given in Joyner usually specify the chain carriers.The iron chains were heavy and the chain carriers needed to be strong.The person for whom the survey was being made had to supply the chain carriers.Very often, he chose sons, sons-in-law, or brothers-in-law for this job.Theobald Crisler chose Lawrence Garr, his brother-in-law, and Peter Cree, of an unknown relationship.The land was adjacent to Michael Blankenbaker, who, like Crisler, married a daughter of Andreas Gar.Zachory Blankenbaker was Michael's brother.
Lawrence Garr chose Tivall and Zacharias Blancumbaker as chain carriers.Probably Tivall was a brother-in-law.Theobald Crisler chose Lawrence Garr and Henry Tivall.Lawrence was Theobald's brother-in-law.Henry (and Zacharias) were brothers of brothers-in-law.One wonders about Zacharias Blankenbaker, as his known marriage was when he was well into his thirties.Did he have any earlier marriage?As you might judge, "Virginia Northern Neck Warrants and Surveys" is fascinating reading.
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Nr. 592:
Several good suggestions were made by readers for the name "Tivall" but I lean to selections from Rupp's "Thirty Thousand Names".In particular, two names strike me as possibilities, Diwall and Dewalt.The German's "D" was often heard as a "T" and the "w" would be sounded as a "v".Either of these names could be the source of Tivall.Rupp's names are immigrants through Philadelphia, and that is to be expected.The Garr family and the Crisler came through Philadelphia and lived for a while in Pennsylvania.So it would not be a surprise to have the Tivall family living in Pennsylvania for a while also.
Lawrence Garr, son of Andreas Garr, was born in 1716.In Virginia, he married Dorothy Blankenbaker, who was born in Virginia, probably in the 1720's.Their four children have been given.The names were probably taken from the will of Lawrence, which was written in 1753 and witnessed by Lewis Fisher (cousin-in-law of Dorothy), Theobald Crisler (his brother-in-law), and Zachary Blankenbaker (Dorothy's brother).
The son, John, was born in 1744, and the son, Andrew, was born in 1750 (according to the Garr Genealogy); the birth dates of the two girls are not specified.At his death, Lawrence was about 38 years old.The family was quite young.His wife, Dorothy, apparently never remarried, as she appeared in the church records for another thirty years or so.She must have been responsible for the farm(s) and raising the children.No information is known on the future of the two girls, Eve and Elizabeth.Each of them was left land and the eventual fate of the land might disclose something.
I thought it would be interesting, as a part of the search, to see if there were any references to Eve and Elizabeth in the Hebron Church records.Of course, they probably would not appear under the name of Garr but under a married name.A prime location would be the sponsors at the baptisms of the children of Andrew and John, their brothers, since siblings were often chosen as sponsors.
The births of seven children of John Garr and his wife Margaret Wilheit are given in the Hebron Register.There were five more children who are not recorded at the church.One of the reasons may have been that the church fell on "hard times" at about the time the last child of John and Margaret is recorded.The church was without a well-defined leadership for several years and John and Margaret may have drifted away from the church.The birth date of one child does not agree when comparison is made between the Garr genealogy and the church records.In the next note, I will examine the records for the children at the church.
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Nr. 593:
Looking at the birth and baptismal records at the German Lutheran Church for the first seven children of John Gaar and his wife Margaret Wilhoit, we have:
Lawrence, b. 16 Nov 1767.The sponsors were Michael Gaar (his cousin), George Crisler (his cousin), Eve Fisher (her sister), and Mary Carpenter (her cousin).[In the relationships here, the reference is always to the parents so "his" refers to John and "her" refers to Margaret, the parents of the child.]
Abraham, b. 28 Feb 1769.The sponsors were Michael Carpenter (his cousin-in-law, married to Mary Crisler), and Eve Fisher (her sister, who married Bernard Fisher).It was unusual to have only two sponsors, but perhaps the baptism was rushed.
John, b. 16 Mar 1771.The sponsors were Nicholas Yager (her brother-in-law who married Susanna), George Crisler (his cousin), Eve Fisher (her sister), and Mary Carpenter (her cousin, who married Wm. Carpenter).
Aaron, b. 20 Jan 1773.The sponsors were Michael Carpenter (his cousin-in-law), George Crisler (his cousin), Susanna Yager (her sister), and Eve Fisher (her sister).
Elizabeth, b. 25 Jan 1775.The sponsors were Nicholas Yager (her brother-in-law), Bernard Fisher (her brother-in-law), Magdalena Crisler (his cousin-in-law, who married George Crisler), and Mary Carpenter (her cousin).
In the church records, the sixth child is unnamed, but was born 8 Nov 1776.In the Garr Genealogy, this child is Leanna, with the same birth date.The sponsors were George Crisler (his cousin), Michael Carpenter (his cousin-in-law), Susanna Yager (her sister), and Eve Fisher (her sister).The record for this child is duplicated in the church register (but that is another story).
The seventh child in the church records is Lea, b. 16 Apr 1778.No child appears in the Garr Genealogy with this birthday.The sponsors were Bernard Fisher (her brother-in-law), Nicholas Yager (her brother-in-law), Mary Carpenter (her cousin), and Anna Crisler (his cousin, whose full given name was Anna Magdalena).
The Garr Genealogy says there was a total of twelve children, but only the seven here are in the church register.
Note some points about the choice of the sponsors.They were all of the same generation as the parents.They were chosen from siblings or cousins of the parents or from spouses of the siblings or cousins.Of the twenty-six choices made for sponsors, half of them were from cousins or the cousin's spouses.Nine of the twenty-six were related by marriage and not by blood.This is the classic pattern of sponsorship at the church.Knowing this, we can often detect or confirm relationships among people.
Andrew Garr was never a sponsor for his brother John's children, a situation which makes one wonder.The situation is even more strange when one considers that Andrew's wife was Christina Wilhoit who was a sister of Margaret.
This little exercise started primarily to see if Eve and Elizabeth, John Gaar's sisters, could be detected.They do not appear as sponsors.
[There will be no note tomorrow as I will be leaving early for the Pennsylvania Chapter meeting of the Palatines to America.A few weeks ago, the Virginia Chapter meeting of PalAm was mentioned which was a very good meeting.]
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Nr. 594:
In the last note, I gave the baptisms in which John Gaar was a parent and we looked at his choice of sponsors.This note looks at the baptisms where John Gaar was chosen as a sponsor.
Michael Zimmerman (who was a Carpenter), and his wife Mary Crisler, for their son, Solomon (born 20 Nov 1761), chose John Gaar (her cousin), Henry Crisler (her brother), Mary Carpenter (his sister-in-law, who was the w/o Wm., Sr.), and Elizabeth Fisher (her cousin, the w/o Adam).
Again, Michael and Mary, for their son, Moses (b. 5 Nov 1775), chose Wm. Carpenter (his brother), John Gaar (her cousin), Elizabeth Fisher (her cousin), and Elizabeth Crisler (her sister-in-law, who had married Henry).
Nicholas Yager and his wife Susanna (Willheit), for their daughter, Rosina (b. 9 Oct 1778), chose John and Margaret Gaar (her brother-in-law and sister), and Eva Boehm.For Eva, I not ready and/or able to make any statement.
John Wayland, Jr. and his wife, Rosina (Willheit), sometimes called Rosanna, chose for their son, William (b. 20 Jun 1783), Joshua and Rachel Utz Wayland (his brother and sister-in-law), and John Gaar (her brother-in-law).
Fourteen choices were made.Five were related by marriage, not by blood.Four were siblings.Four were blood cousins.One is an unknown.All were of the same generation as the parents.
Andrew Gaar, John Gaar's brother, had one child baptized, Simon (b. 26 Apr 1777).Andrew's wife was Christina Willheit.Their choices of sponsors were Bernard Fisher (her brother-in-law), Eva Fisher (Bernard's wife and her sister), John Wayland, Jr. (her brother-in-law), and Mary Willheit (her sister-in-law, the wife of Nicholas).To classify them, one choice was related by blood and three were related by marriage.John Gaar, his brother, and Margaret (Willheit) Gaar, her sister, were not chosen.
Andrew Gaar was chosen by Bernard Fisher and his wife.Andrew was the brother-in-law of Bernard's wife, Eve Willheit, who was Christina Gaar's sister.Andrew Gaar was chosen by John Blankenbaker and his wife, Barbara Cook.Andrew was John's cousin.Twice, Daniel Willheit and his wife Mary Blankenbaker chose Andrew Gaar.Daniel and Andrew were brothers-in-law, as Daniel was Christina's brother.
Though the details are not given here, eight of the sponsors, when Andrew Gaar was involved, were related by marriage out of the total of eighteen choices.Only seven of the choices were siblings of the parents.But all of them were of the same generation as the parents.
The choices of sponsors which I have been illustrating here recently are very typical of the sponsorship patterns at large.There are exceptions, few in number, to the patterns I have been showing.
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Nr. 595:
Recent notes dealing with the record of baptisms at the German Lutheran Church, now known as Hebron, have prompted questions such as, "Where are the rest of the kids?" and, "Why weren't my people recorded?"We saw a good example of the first question in the case of John Gaar and his wife Margaret Willheit.
Until about 1739, twenty-two years after they came, the Second Colony had had the services of their own pastor for only about a year and a half.When Rev. Stöver died on the return home from the trip to Germany to raise funds, his place was taken by George Samuel Klug.Rev. Klug served for twenty-four years in the new church building.He was followed by John Schwarbach who served until about 1775.Both of these men served the community well.
The next pastor, who came as a provisional pastor, was Jacob Franck, a layman turned cleric.He served a little less than three years starting in November of 1775.He was a hard worker and a good salesman for the church and the congregation was pleased with him.In his short term, the number of baptisms averaged more than ten times the numbers for 1750 to 1775 when computed on an annual basis.The length of the communicant lists grew.In short, the church was revitalized in his three years but he resigned and went to silversmithing in Philadelphia.
For a period of nine years following his resignation, the church history is murky.There was no regular pastor, but a succession of supply or temporary ministers.Some say John Michael Schmidt, from within the congregation, attempted to lead the church for a few years, but with disastrous results.In the church register of births and baptisms, the record keeping became very poor.It appears that people stayed away from the Hebron church.
At the same time, old ways were being subverted.The power of the state church (tied to England) was weakening during these Revolutionary years.More tolerance was being shown to other religious groups such as the Baptists.Many of the Lutherans started attending that church.Other Lutherans just opted out of the religious picture.The net result is that people such as John and Margaret Gaar brought no children for baptism after 1778.
It wasn't until 1787, when William Carpenter, Jr., became the pastor, that record keeping in the church was returned to normalcy.His pastorate was honorable, though not without some disagreements with the elders and the congregation.By then, many of the members were beginning to use English as a working language while the church remained solidly German in its outlook.So cultural change took its toll also.
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Nr. 596:
The Hebron Church Register is not quite what it seems to be.It appears to have been started in the year 1750 as the earliest births start in that year.However, the internal evidence shows that the oldest writing in it dates from 1775.One cannot escape the conclusion that it was rewritten in that year and that it did not include all of the births from 1750 to 1775.This is one reason that the number of births in these twenty-five years is low.Not all of the births that had occurred in the community were recorded in the rewritten Register.
In the year 1775, just before the new pastor, Jacob Franck, came, the congregation decided to put their baptismal and birth records into a better and more systematic order that would be a help to Rev. Franck.They collected their data together and sorted it by families.Basically, each family was given one page in the Register on which the parents were listed at the top and their children were listed below them.Some families were not included in the rewrite though.They had moved away and Rev. Franck would not need a knowledge of them.In the rewrite, only those families who were still living in the community were included.So if your family moved away in the period before 1775, it will not be found in the Register.
The rule was made that no family would be included who had children born before 1750.This may have been an arbitrary rule or it may have arisen from the fact they had no records from before 1750.The families that are included do not seem, from other sources, to have had children born before 1750.
When the original records started is not clear.The practice from Germany was to record baptisms, deaths, and marriages as they occurred.Since a Lutheran minister could not legally perform a marriage, it would be reasonable that they did not include these.Whether they ever kept a record of deaths is not clear, but by 1750 they were keeping a complete record of births, baptisms, and the sponsors at baptisms.Probably they were keeping these before 1750 but they did not use the data in the rewrite.
The 1750 rule lead to a quandary as what to do about the family of Zacharias (John Nicholas) Blankenbaker.Zacharias had his first child in 1750 so he should have been included in the very first pages since a rough chronological sequence was maintained in the rewrite.But his family is entered on page 22, far out of the sequence in which it would be expected.At first, during the rewrite, his family was omitted because Zacharias had married a lady who had two daughters, both born before 1750.Then it was observed that none of Zacharias' own children was born before 1750 so, in the end, they included him.But, no mention is made of his stepdaughters.
One of the tipoffs that the Register was not quite what it appeared to be was that some of the children in a family were not in the proper sequence.And the pages were not assigned to the families in the proper sequence.It was just noted that the family of Zacharias should have been one of the very first pages but it was entered on page 22 instead.
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Nr. 597:
In 1775, when the congregation of Hebron Church rewrote their records of births and baptisms, they purchased a fifty-page book in which to make the entriesThe used the first 24 pages for family records, devoting one page to a familySome pages had two families though, which was a puzzle to meHow did they know that they would not be needing all of the space on the page for the first family?This was one of the oddities that tipped me off that the Register was not quite what it seemed to beAnother thing that was strange about the record of baptisms was that the date of baptism was not given though the date of birth was givenRemember the book was meant to be a record of baptisms.
When the Rev. Franck arrived in 1775, he found the Register in a beautiful condition with the data neatly organized in sections (a page or part of a page) for each familyWhat did he do?He kept the records in a strict chronological sequenceStarting on page 25, he entered each baptism immediately after the previous one giving the parents, the child, the sponsors, and the datesSo there is an abrupt change in style, starting with the baptism of Aaron Broyles, son of Peter Broyles and his wife ElizabethSponsors were Zacharias Broyles, John Blankenbaker, and Mary Blankenbaker.
Many of the records were copied from the chronological section back into the family sectionThe baptism just cited was one that was copied back into the Peter Broyles family sectionIn the process, the date of baptism was omitted and the sponsors become Zacharias Broyles, John Blankenbaker, and his wife MaryNotice that the Mary Blankenbaker, whom I believe was the sister of John Blankenbaker, became the wife of John Blankenbaker in the copying processIn general, for these duplicated records, the one in the chronological section is to be trusted more than the one in the family section.
By October of 1778 when Rev. Franck resigned, the entries were being made on page 36, showing that he had a very busy three years (the previous 25 years had been summarized in 24 pages)The last entry on page 36 is 19 Oct 1778The first entry on page 37 is for Elizabeth Wayland, who was born on 24 May 1779The third baptism on this page appears to be in 1781The following entries skip around in the dates and often omit the yearOne sees that record keeping became very erratic in the years following the departure of Rev. FranckThe number of baptisms falls off sharply and the data is organized poorlyAt the same time, the fifty-page book was being exhaustedThe last four pages of this book had been reserved for special events such as the baptisms of children born to unwed mothers and the baptisms of slave children.
In 1787, when William Carpenter, Jr. started his pastorate, another book was purchasedRecords in this second book were kept by family, not chronologicallyIn the process, some records from before 1787 were entered in this book to make the record more completeIn this second book, the first family is Samuel Carpenter and his wife Diana and their children, who start in 1780Rev. Carpenter was giving his brother's family here.
At a later time, book one and book two were bound together in one volumeIn this binding process, some of the pages were reorderedThe page with the handwritten page number of 1 became page 3 and the original page 3 became page 1 in the new rebound bookProbably this was because the original page 1 had become so worn that it was deemed safer to interchange the first two sheets of paper.
Besides volume one, there is also a volume two which contains records of communicants, confirmations, minutes of meetings, financial records, the constitution, and general information.