JANUARY 1992 NEWSLETTER
As 1991 draws to a close I wish to thank you all for the support and contributions to the genealogist that you have provided. We have made tremendous progress in the two short years that this newsletter has been in publication.
Research Status Report I finally received a letter from a genealogist in Germany, after waiting 8 weeks for it to arrive. He was not able to accept work from our family organization unfortunately due to other obligations. He suggested a person who might be able to help us--Walter Bohrer in Zweibruecken, Germany. Zweibruecken is located just 6 miles from the ancestral homes of Michael Maurer and Martin Brill. I have written Herr Bohrer and requested his services. In the mean time we have not been idle here on the home front.
I wrote the Reverend Dennis Kastens in Illinois who is an expert in the Hornbach and Boeckweiler area of Germany. He wrote me and provided me with some interesting information about the family. As you know we are looking for Michael Maurer of Hornbach who would have been living there in the 1700-1750 time frame. He located a 1742 census of Hornbach for me and guess who is listed as residents of Hornbach? Gottfried Maurer a father with ___ children; Michael Maurer a father with ____ children; and Andrew Maurer, a father with ____ children. Since our Michael was living in America in 1745 when his daughter, Catharine was born, this might be our Michael, or it might be his father. Of course finding an Andrew Maurer there was very interesting since our Michael named his son, Andrew in 1752. Very strong evidence in regards to our people indeed coming from the Hornbach, Germany area. I have written to the City Archives of Zweibruecken and requested two books in print regarding early inhabitants of Hornbach. Hopefully I will have them before the next newsletter.
Giant strides have been made this month in the Brill line in regards to the descendants of Martin Brill. I wrote 10 letters to individuals who had been studying the Brill line and I received 4 replies in return. The result has been extremely encouraging. I have received information on many hundred descendants of Martin Brill through his son Christopher Brill who married Anna Margaret Maurer, daughter of Michael Maurer. I have located several distant cousins who are currently studying the line. One is even a member of the Church in the state of Washington. The most information has come from non-member relatives however who are avid genealogists. Some have collected extensive genealogies of the descendants of Martin Brill. I am entering all of these on our computer file and am finding literally dozens of our relatives who have not had their temple work done. In fact, it will undoubtedly go into the hundreds. On my Michael Maurer file are the names of 11,800 individuals who are connected to Michael Maurer through marriage or blood. I am working on submitting anyone on this file who qualifies for temple work, but I currently am working on Brills in particular.
I made large submissions this fall for Sarah Mower (md. Samuel Diehl); the descendants of Mahala Mower (grand daughter of Henry Mower Sr.); the descendants of Elizabeth "Betsey" Amick (daughter of John Amick and Anna Maria Brill); the descendants and ancestors of Elizabeth Hall (md. Henry Mower Jr.); Loudoun County Church records; Trinity Lutheran (Bedford County) Church Records.
Let me explain why I submitted the last two entries. One of the most remarkable experiences we have had in this quest for our ancestors is the experience of finding these two "lost" church records. The Loudoun Co. records were uncovered in German script, untranslated, and in that condition, they were of no use to anyone. The translation Tedi Jeen made of these records (and is currently working on to finish) allowed us to establish the fact that Andrew Mower lived in the Loudoun Co. area with his sister Anna Margaret (Maurer) Brill and that he christened two children in the Loudoun Co. Churches. These were two children that we didn't even know had lived.
I had a great opportunity here to say thank you to the Pastor Henry Giese who was the pastor of the Loudoun County church during the period Andrew Mower lived there (1787-1796). Thanks to Pastor Giese who recorded the baptismal information and kept a record, I was able to identify the two lost children of Andrew Mower. Pastor Giese also recorded on the same record the christenings of his 5 children. I wanted to say thank you to him in a special way for keeping that record.
I have completed a neat project this month which I have submitted to the Bedford Historical Society of Bedford, Pennsylvania. Since we have so many descendants of Michael Maurer living in Bedford County, I submitted a descendants list of 10 generations of descendants of John Amick and Anna Maria Brill to the library there. The notebook I submitted included 142 typed pages of descendants with an index to all known Bedford County families. I have been working on this project in my spare time for the last two years and was very pleased to send it to their library. I have ulterior motives for sending it to their library however. I want to have it available to library patrons who live there, and I put an invitation in the front of it for interested persons who can add to the knowledge of the family or make corrections to write me in Bedford, Wyoming. In this way I hope to put some Bedford County relatives to work helping us research this genealogy to make it more accurate and complete.
I am going to make at least 3 more of these type books for publication. I am going to place one of Michael Maurer's descendants in the Bucks County Historical Library in Bucks Co., Pa. I am also going to put a 10 genearation descendants list of Martin Brill and Anna Maria Maurer in the Loudoun Co. Va. Historical Society and the Guernsey Co., Ohio libraries. Hopefully this will generate more interest in our ancestors. I know already that we have the most complete record in existence of Martin Brill's descendants, because I have compiled the records of the largest researchers into one master file. The same can be said for Michael Maurer's descendants.
Winter's Work This winter I am afraid that I will only be able to make it to Salt Lake once, perhaps twice per month to research. We are having a spring break for a week in March however and I plan on spending that week working in Salt Lake. I will continue to work on the Brill lines here at home with periodic submissions as I complete genealogies on relatives of ours. I will also do "clean-up" work on lines I have been working on that I mentioned.
I traveled to Salt Lake and visited with Jim Petty, our professional genealogist over Thanksgiving weekend and I am going to turn him loose on the Geissinger line right away. I first of all want him to trace the descendants of Carl Geissinger from Bedford County until we get a definite line on them and their location. Then I can pick up from there and complete genealogies in that regard. I will then turn him onto the origins of the Geissinger family.
I am pursuing with great interest the German phase of the research, but I must admit, communication with Europe is slow and progress is slow in coming and I don't want to wait and wait for things, so I keep other lines active while I am waiting for progress there. We will hire a genealogist soon and I am confident we will be making significant progress this winter and spring on those lines. Tedi Jeen has several films she is reading for me on Zweibruecken, Germany which we have ordered from Salt Lake. Karl Folk has offered to read some German script films for me on Hornbach area towns.
I would like a copy of all Geissinger information which anyone out there has so that I can pass on research done to Jim Petty. Don't send me Geissinger family group sheets. I want any research information learned.
RELATIVES The photo below is a 1905 photo of Almira Ann Mower, daughter of Henry Mower Sr. and Almira Jane Wheeler. She is pictured with her husband, William T. Brower and her children and grand children.