JULY 1991 NEWSLETTER
As I worked in our branch library in Afton a few weeks ago, a librarian asked me if I would be interested in looking at a group of materials which could be purchased from the Allen County Library in Ohio. As I browsed through these articles I found several on Bedford Co., Pa and I ordered those. I also saw offered some material on the Mowrer family of Lancaster Co., Pa. Since Lancaster is close to Bucks Co. where our Maurers attended Church, I ordered some of those materials.
The materials arrived in the mail last week and I was very pleased to see the Mowrer material. A lady in Chester Co., Pa has traced her ancestry back to Balthasar Maurer Jr. and then to his father, Balthasar Sr. His descendants stayed in the area leaving her lots of clues to trace her ancestry. This was very important information for us I believe. Our genealogist, Jim Petty, has identified a Balthasar Maurer attending Church near Michael Maurer. Michael attend in Nockamixon Twp., Bucks Co., Pa.
If you will refer to the Jim's report which accompanies the last two issues of this Newsletter, you will see he strongly suspects Balthasar to be a brother to Michael or at least a close relative. When Balthasar's children were christened, "his brother" was the witness to the baptism. Jim speculates this MAY be Michael Maurer, our ancestor who is the father of Andrew Mower.
The greatest news of all I think was that the lady in Chester Co., has some kind of record on the origins of Balthasar. She has Balthasar Jr. listed as being born in Switzerland. I immediately wrote her a letter requesting her information and documentation. As of this writing I have not hear from her. IF this proves to be true, we MAY have made a gigantic leap across the ocean.
Since school was out I immediately drove to Salt Lake and spent three days researching in the archives. I also met with Jim Petty and we discussed this new development. Jim is more sensible than I am and cautioned me to be very careful with this information. From the very first we have gone on proof and/or very strong logical, supported evidence for the results of all of our research. Just because this lady says Balthasar comes from Switzerland, doesn't mean he does. We want to see the proof. We also want to make sure this Balthasar is the same who appears in the Church records we have located. This would link him to us. I guess this thing has been on my mind so much and I just want to find out where we come from, that I get too excited at times. Anyway, Jim's advice is well-taken and we are checking out all the evidence, before we make conclusions.
In the mean time I researched the records of Switzerland and located only one Balthasar Maurer (Meurer), but he lived too early to be ours. I have in no means exhausted all the places to research in Switzerland. IF this proves to be our family, then we can make an exhaustive search of Swiss records. I was hoping to find a Maurer family in Switzerland with two brothers named Michael and Balthasar. If they lived during our time frame (born abt 1700-1725) and were shown to emigrate, we would have an extremely strong case. That is what dreams are made of I guess.
I am currently working on the Samuel and Sarah (Mower) Diehl and the Mahala Mower lines. It is incredible how this family history can consume your time and abilities to do other things.
I am going to the Copperton Park Mower Reunion on July 27th at 1:00 p.m. and will plan to meet with any of you there who want an updated genealogical report at that time. I should have one from Jim by then. I am receiving lots of information from the genealogist I hired in Bedford Co., Pa to do footwork for us back there.