June 1992 Newsletter
GERMAN RESEARCHER HIRED BY OUR ASSOCIATION
We have hired Dr. Bernd Goelzer of France to work for our family association. After two unsuccessful tries at hiring a genealogist, I wrote to the American expert on emigration from the Palatinate in Germany, Hank Jones, and asked him for a recommendation of a genealogist. He suggested his personal collegue, Dr. Goelzer, who is an expert and a native German on the Zweibruecken area of research. Enclosed find part of his letter to me.
>From DR. GOELZER: "Yes, the MAURER families of Hornbach and the BRILL families of Boeckweiler are well-known to me. I could even claim that nobody around here has collected that much information on the very first BRILL in Boeckweiler than I did. You are probably aware of the problem that Hornbach Reformed church records 1645-1798 and Hornbach Lutheran church records 1708-1798 burned in WW II. Hence the main source of genealogical information for Hornbach city is lost and the same holds true for adjacent Boeckweiler (Boeckweiler Reformed and Lutheran families were both served by the respective pastors at Hornbach). Nevertheless there are some substitute sources like an investigation on Swiss in Hornbach Reformed church records made in 1904, a family register for Boeckweiler made in 1923, and a family index to Hornbach Reformed church records (only vol. I, 1645-1719) made in 1937. In addition there are census records of 1624, 1663, 1669, 1696, 1704, 1731, 1742, 1776) for all of Zweibruecken county (including Boeckweiler and Hornbach) and a house register for Hornbach of mid-1700's. There is even an official transcript of Boeckweiler births, marriages and deaths 1680-1708 duplicating the lost original word by word.
"I can make you a detailed report on the MAURER families in Hornbach and on the BRILL families in Boeckweiler using said substitute sources and also other info available to me. The time period will be from about 1680-1776 for the MAURERs and from about 1680-1923 for the BRILL families of Boeckweiler....I take personal checks in advance..."
I quickly made photocopies of family group sheets that Tedi Jeen and I have been assembling from our German research this winter. We have identified about 700 indiviudals linked to the MAURER and BRILL families of the area, through blood and marriage. I made copies of information learned so far on the various Michael MAURERs we have identified to date from the region. For example, nearby Mimbach---just a couple of miles away---has a Michael MAURER born about 1705-died about 1750. We have identified 2 of his wives, and 6 of his children. He obviously is not our Michael, because our Michael emigrated to the US and was living in Bucks County until about 1768, but he MIGHT have been a relative. I mailed this to Dr. Goelzer.
I sent family group sheets to Dr. Goelzer on the BRILLs and on our Michael MAURER's family in America. I gave him documentation from the Heimatstelle Pfalz in Kaiserslautern which supposedly states that Martin BRILL married Anna Maria MAURER of Michael MAURER of the Hornbacher lutherans. All of this was sent to him to facilitate his research. His report, part of which follows, is disappointing to us as it points out we were misled in part this year, but---on the bright side, we needed to know this information.
Partial Research Report From Dr.Goelzer
"Dear Mr. Mower, I received your letter of 17 March 1992 and the enclosed check for $140 US for research on the MAURER and BRILL families."
"I copied already a number of records but didn't get them organized and explained in an orderly fashion. So please allow a couple of weeks for the research to proceed, for I am presently living in a Hotel in Duesseldorf, Germany and only return to my place on the weekends..."
"For Hornbach church records are lost, this area has become a playground for genealogists and their speculations. I copied 20 odd letters on BRILL in the Institute for Palatine History and Folklore in Kaiserslautern (the former Heimatstelle Pfalz)...which I will mail to you later." [He did]
"It is interesting to read how certain strange ideas evolved. The crucial steps occured, as far as I can make out, in 1988:"
1) "Letter of James McJohn to Karl Schaaff, dated 4 March 1988: Mr. McJohn says he saw the surname of BRILL in Karl Schaaff's 1731 Oath of Allegiance lists of Boeckweiler and asks whether Karl Schaaff has info on the Boeckweiler and BRILL families."
"Obviously in the correspondence that followed a certain Mr. Ernst Sauerbrey of Homburg became involved in that case, for he received a similar letter from Mr. McJohn. Preserved is only the reaction by Ernst Sauerbrey:"
2) "Letter of Ernst Sauerbrey to the Heimatstelle Pfalz, dated 21 August 1988: Here good old Mr. Sauerbrey stated that he had received a letter from America asking for Martin BRILL and adds 'he is allegedly of Boeckweiler, born 1710, and allegedly he married Anna Maria MAURER, Lutheran, the daughter of Michael MAURER and Anna Elisabetha of Hornbach.'"
"As can be seen in comparison to earlier letters, Mr. Sauerbrey mixed the info on Christopher BRILL's wife up with the info on Martin BRILL's wife."
3) "The next point in this evolution of data is that the Heimatstelle Pfalz, like always, included this information in their card file. In September, 1988, they made a second card for Martin BRILL including the information on his origin and his wife."
4) "For me as a scientist this is like observing a hidden evolution. Normally we find only the resulting product, like e.g. a strange information without a source printed in some town or family history. Here the case is different: it can be traced step by step how a mere idea ivolved into a written information."
"I will leave the question open whether Martin BRILL hailed from Zweibruecken county within the state of Pfalz-Zweibruecken and also the other question re Michael MAURER, but as of today chances are 1:95 against Martin BRILL and 50:50 for Michael MAURER."
Yours truly, Bernd Goelzer
July 1991-June 1992 Research Summary by Jerry Mower
We have had a remarkable year in researching our family lines. Many sucesses, some failures, but even in our failures we have learned a great deal about the family.
Last year we received a report from Germany, located at the Institute for Palatine History and Folklore in Kaiserslautern that our Martin BRILL was married to Anna Maria MAURER, daughter of Michael MAURER and his wife, Anna Elisabetha. This was great news for us and seemed reliable considering the sources from which it came.
We then launched a serious study of Boeckweiler and Hornbach, Germany to locate our Michael MAURER and the BRILL families. Sure enough there were many MAURER and BRILL families to study and even several Michael MAURERS. We were disappointed that the actual records of Hornbach were destroyed in WWII.
During all this time we knew we had to have help in Europe to unravel this genealogical puzzle. After 6 months of writing to genealogists in Europe and in America, we suceeded in hiring an expert in the field, Dr. Bernd GOELZER.
This spring he commenced a study of the BRILL and MAURER families of the region. He also did something which I have not been able to do and that is to visit the archive in Kaiserslautern and personally review the evidence. Although his results were very disappointing to us because of what he found, the results were very valuable and kept us off the wrong track.
He discovered that the above mentioned entry relating to Martin BRILL was in error, and subsequent research of Dr. GOELZER revealed that there IS NOT firm evidence that Martin BRILL actually came from Boeckweiler. This was disappointing news to me because, based on the information received previously, Tedi Jeen and I have spent several hundred hours this winter extracting BRILL information from area records.
The results of our research are not lost however, as I have submitted a rather large genealogy contribution to the ancestral file, which in some cases, links 7 generations together!
I don't feel like we wasted time, based on the fact every clue must be investigated to verify we are on our line. If we in fact determine that we are not on the correct line, then we want to know that, and sometimes the only way to know that is to research extensively. Besides, Tedi Jeen and I volunteer our research time, so we are out only time, not money.
We have appreciated the expertise of Dr. GOELZER and we hope to be able to continue on with him. Your contributions have funded his work. I am not going to give up on this MAURER/BRILL puzzle until all possibilities are exhausted.
We have kept several irons in the fire as you know. Your contributions have funded the research of Jim PETTY who is working on the mystery of where Charles' GEISSINGERs descendants went after leaving Bedford County, Pa. I will include his research report and a financial statement with this newsletter if it arrives in time or with next month's Newsletter. He called me the other night to tell me he has found some of Charles'descendants. This also gives me more clues of where to look!
He has located Charles GEISSINGER Jr. living in Ohio in 1850 at age 70. This Charles is a brother to Catherine (who married Michael MOWER). This is news to us as we thought him deceased by that date.
Research Goals for the Next 12 Months
(1) Continued funding of Dr. GOELZER in Germany as we search for MAURER and BRILL origins.
(2) Continued funding of Jim PETTY as we search for GEISSINGER descendants.
(3) Volunteer work by Tedi Jeen and I as we search for the origins of Charles GEISSINGER, Michael MAURER, Martin BRILL, as well as work on the descendants of those men. Tedi Jeen and I have also spent alot of our own time and money this year working on GEISSINGER leads and we feel this has helped us discover much on the family of interest and benefit. We have shared that with you in past newsletters.
FINAL NOTE Last year Tedi Jeen and I spent several months researching the records of the St. James Church in Lovettsville, Va. You will remember that this was the church that both Martin BRILL and Andrew MAURER attended. We translated about 20 years of the record, up to the year 1805. We felt it a shame that this translated record should not be made available to the public, so I contacted a company in Pennsylvania that publishes genealogical materials and sold them the rights to publish the book.
Any and all royalties earned from that endeavor will be donated to our family history association to fund the work of the professional researchers. It won't rival the sales of Gone With the Wind, and won't be more than a few hundred dollars I suppose, but every little bit helps I guess.