JANUARY 1995 NEWSLETTER
Report By Trudy SCHENK on Michael MAURER Research:
"Dear Jerry and Mower Family, "Today I feel good. I received an early Christmas present and I hope it will be one for all members of the Mower clan.
"You guessed it! I found the correct town of origin of Johann Michael Maurer in Germany. After several days of intense searching (by doing it my way and not continuing where others had plowed), I was guided in the right direction. It won't be hard to prove it to you all and I hope you can understand my explanations.
"As has been known for a long time the emigrant Johann Michael Maurer has been found recorded for the first time in 1745 with the birth of a child in New Hanover Twp. Montgomery Co., Falkner Swamp Church. He went on to Trappe, also in Montgomery Co., between 1747 and July 1750 and appears in Springfield, Bucks, Co., by 1752
"While I studied the Falkner Swamp church records, I made a list of family names which appear there from the beginning of the church in 1744. I went on to Trappe where Michael moves next and made a list of family names who also appear in Falkner Swamp.
"This is part of the list: Glotz, Maurer, Croessman/Cressmann, Christmann, Haas, Braun, Guthmann, Wagner, Schweinhard, Krumrein, Rau, Dotterer, Flechser, and Fischer. I noted that these people must have moved on together and the reason for it could be that they followed the pastor, who was Heinrich Melchior Muehlenberg. A well-known person in the history of Pennsylvania.
"At this point I had not come up with anything much except that a certain group of people seemed to move on together, indicating that they had known each other, perhaps for a longer time.
"As I continued on to Springfield Twp., in Bucks Co., and noted the church records also included the Sigman family who appears on the ship list of Nov. 1738 Charming Nancy where a Johann Michael Maurer shows. I compared the ship list with other names in all 3 churches, checked at this point and found that there definitely is a connection. Several of the same families appeared in the church records who were passengers with Johann Michael Maurer. In particular the Sigmans, Ludwig Glotz, and Johann Stephan Guthmann.
"Certain names I implanted in my mind more than others. The more uncommon such as Schweinhardt, and Krumrein who are in New Hanover among the first residents, not on the same ship with Johann Michael Maurer
"As I paid much attention to these names I extracted certain entries that would seem helpful in tracing back the Maurers. One in particular was a death entry in Trappe recorded on microfilm # 1312468 it reads like this and is written in the German language: 'Georg Michael Schweinhard an Elder in Trappe died on 12 Nov. 1760, he was born in Jungholzhausen in the district of Hohenlohe, Wuerttemberg, Germany. He has been in this country for 28 years.'
"Well, here was a clue to a town in Germany of an emigrant who knew Johann Michael Maurer in New Hanover and in Trappe.
"My thoughts were, 'it won't hurt to spend some time searching the church records of Jungholzhausen.' So I did look into this and found this place is so small it did not have it's own church. The pastor of the neighboring village, Doettingen included the residents in his church records. Now comes the big surprise: The Lutheran church records of Doettingen include not only the Schweinhards, but also the Maurers and many other names who appear in New Hanover, Trappe and Springfield.
"I looked up the Schweinhardt in Strassburger and Hinke, Germans to Pennsylvania and I found them in 1732 Sep. on board of the ship Pennsylvania Merchant . There are the Schweinhards and Krumrein families from parish Doettinger who obviously were the first emigrants from there to leave for America. Surely they wrote back to Doettingen and Jungholzhausen inviting others to come to America. As a result, Michael Maurer, Stephan Guthmann and Ludwig Glotz follow them to Pennsylvania and possibly many othe rs.
"There are several Maurer families in the parish records of Doettingen. The chr. of 2 Johann Michaels, also listed as Hans Michel (short for Johann Michael) confused me at first. There is a birth of Hans Michel Maurer on 18 May 1711, the illeg. son of Anna Maria Maurer who is the daughter of Michel Maurer in Jungholzhausen, the father's name is listed as George Ludwig from Kocherstetten. At first it seemed logical to me that he is the ancestor, yet as I continued the search in these early parish records, I found no trace of this child and his mother as far as communion partakers, marriage or death. I searched the Kocherstetten parish record for a possible marriage of the father George Ludwig and the mother Anna Maria Maurer and found none.
"As I continued my search in Doettingen for other Maurers I found another birth of a Hans Michel Maurer on 17 Jul. 1706, he turned out to be the eldest in a family of 13 children. His father was Georg Caspar Maurer a farmer and the mother was Eva Margaretha, maiden name Kurr.
"I searched all deaths and marriages to see if Hans Michel--- Johann Michael would be listed and found no entry for him or several of his siblings. He had a brother who was deaf who died unmarried at age 63. A sister married a Vogelmann, and as I overlook confirmation in the Springfield church, Bucks Co., I see the name Vogelmann there. Some of his siblings died in infancy and no record is found of two brothers named Hans Jacob and Hans Leonhard.
"Hans Jacob Maurer the brother was born in 1711, he does not get married nor dies in Doettingen and perhaps he is the Jacob Maurer whose dau. is confirmed in Trappe age 15 in 1767. There is also a marriage in Trappe on 2 Jan 1751 of Jacob Maurer, the widower and Margaretha Warhelm from Schoolkyl, PA.
"At this point I still wasn't satisfied and wanted more proof. So I searched the lists of communion attenders in Doettingen and found in 1737 one year before the emigration of Joh. Leonhard Maurer an unmarried man and Joh. Michael Maurer an unmarried man. This was probably done in preparation to go to America. This was a time of confession and taking the sacrament. At this time Johann Michael Maurer was already 31 years old and still single and his brother was 15 years old. There is no record of Johann Leonhard arriving in Penn.., if he came with his brother Johann Michael he would have barely been 16 years old. This could account for the fact that he was not listed since boys had to be at least 16 years. old to sign the ship list.
"I have a feeling that some of the sisters came also to America. Two of them married in Doettingen one to a Voegelmann which was already mentioned and the other to Heinrich Teschlein. When the mother died in 1762 the pastor noted in the entry that she was living with her dau. Dorothea Teschlein at the time of her death.
"The father, Georg Caspar Maurer died on 15 March 1751 in Doettingen at the age of 79 yrs., 7 d. in his death entry it is recorded that he was born on 22 March 1672 in Goggenbach.
"Goggenbach is a neighboring village of Doettingen and again it was so small at the time that it had no church. The pastor of Eschental kept the records for Goggenbach and for some unknown reason church records begin only in 1719, so I can't find parents. Yet I checked into the microfilmed records any way and found that Maurers lived there in fact a Johann Philipp Maurer is married in 1736 and he could easily be the passenger on the ship Charming Nancy, in Nov. 1738 listed with Johann Michael.
"For today I have given you much food for thought. There is no doubt in my mind that I have the correct person. If anyone has a question or more, feel free to write or call me.
"We have to find the marriage of Johann Michael Maurer to Anna Elisabetha so we can get her maiden name. It must have taken place in Philadelphia or Germantown. Perhaps tracing back the places of service of pastor Muehlenberg who by the way is also from Wuerttemberg in Germany, would help looking in the right places.
"Jerry I will meet you at the library, Friday. I have copies from the original records and will work more to prepare complete families so you can put them on PAF.
Sincerely yours, Trudy Schenk.
Note from Jerry MOWER: Well, needless to say this information came as a great shock out of the blue and I immediately phoned Trudy. We visited on the phone and she gave me more verifying evidences that she has indeed found our Michael MAURER, father of Andrew MAURER and great grandfather of Henry MOWER Sr. I directed Trudy to continue researching this family. We are going to need to locate the church records for Goggenbach, the village of Michael MAURER's father. We need to find the American record of Michael's marriage to Anna Elisabetha. I am not saying this is the family YET. I want to see the evidence, evaluate it, and then we can make a good decision. Trudy is convinced this is our Michael. I am encouraged and optimistic.
The question I have is this: The Captain's List on the Charming Nancy, lists Johan Michel MOUSE, age 18. The other 2 lists on this ship list the name as Johan Michael MAURER. It is not the name change that bother's me. The Captain had some clerk write down the names who obviously could not spell or understand German. All of the names on the Captain's list are slaughtered according to spelling. What bother's me is the age 18. That would mean Johann Michael MAURER was born in 1720, and could not be the Johann Michael born in 1706 that Trudy found. Two possibilities here--- the age was also in error as was the name, OR there could have been another child in the family born in 1720 named Johann Michael MAURER. I checked the family group sheet Trudy sent to me and there is a 3 year gap from 1719 to 1722 in the 13 children of George MAURER. A Johann Michael MAURER could easily have been born in 1720. I have written Trudy about this and we are checking it out. I also got on the computer and linked in by modem to a national genealogy bulleltin board and asked for someone to travel to Harrisburg, Pa and check the original Captain's ship list and verify it says "age 18" by Johan Michel MOUSE. I will trade the person who does this for me time at the FHL in Salt Lake. Such verification would be nice to have. This much I am sure of --- Trudy has found the villages of origin of the MAURER family. This can be proved by the other immigrants and church attenders in Pennsylvania.
Just a coincidence?: When I went to the library and found Doettingen on the map I was again shocked. Tedi Jeen's great grandfather, Charles HEINER, immigrated in the 1870's from the town of Michelfeld, Germany to Bedford, Wyoming. Michelfeld is the home village of all the HEINER family. Tedi Jeen has extracted about 5,000 HEINER relatives for her side of the family from those Michelfeld records. Doettingen, the ancestral village of Michael MAURER lies only about 15 miles from Michelfeld.