Re: Ruffner Immigrants, Peter & Simon
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In reply to:
Re: Ruffner Immigrants, Peter & Simon
James T. Holt 12/12/01
OK - settle these 'stories' about Peter Ruffner's arrival from Europe about 1732.First of all, the man who put together this canard in the first place was considered to be very 'wise'.Actually he didnt know anything about where Peter came from, he was writing in the dark!What I first heard was that Peter came from the Lower Palitinate. Which would have meant somewhere along the Rhine where it bends around Switzerland. No he didn't come from there either. It seems he came from the canton of Zurich from the small village of Maienfeld! It seems five or six generation before his birth, the first of his family for whatever reason crossed the alps from what is now Austria from a place called Feldkirk. Could Simon and Peter be very distant cousins?Someone has done the DNA on this and there seems to be no connection. Now the name Ruffner, in any spelling you want to make it. Roehmer, Roehner, Roofener and any of any of the 14 other spellings I have found so far. In modern spelling, one of the variations of Ruffner was Offner. It seems the basis for the name is work-related. So, because of that - whatever the work was could be done by any German speaker andywhere the language was spoken. There was even a man from around the Polish/Russian border whose name was Ruffner and settled in the area of Charleston, WV.
My connection to all this?I am directly related father to son thru 8 generationsPeter Sr. to eldest son Joseph and on. There are Simon Ruffners and Peter Ruffners all across the US. Peter arrived abt 1732 and Simon abt 1743. The end.