AUGUST 1992 NEWSLETTER
Thanks to all who have written and contributed to the work of the genealogists this summer. Cleo Spencer thanks those who have contributed to the mailing of the newsletter. My report to you this month is a research report from Dr. Bernd Goelzer of Germany on the BRILL family, and a report by Jim Petty regarding further research he has done on the GEISSINGER family. I spent 5 full days in June researching in the FHL in Salt Lake and on 1 day Jim Petty and I worked together on the GEISSINGERS.
Report from Dr. Goelzer on the BRILL Families of Germany:
10 June 1992 "Dear Mr. Mower, I have your letter of 15 May 1992 where you ask that I should contact Walter Wittmer who is presently working on a book on the families of Hornbach. I know him well, on a first name basis, over here this is an unusual close degree of knowing a person. For example in my company I know exactly four people on a first name basis. Just thinking about work I can't recall right now the first name of my colleague and roommate Mr. MAURER. Now I got it, Roland. His family name is MAURER, of Homburg/Saar, 20 miles Northeast of Saarbruecken.
I didn't mention this so far, for when I showed him your first letter to me with the picture and the farm and horses, he read it and came out with his usual answer that he is not interested in genealogy at all. That's what he always says when I start cheating about genealogy.
I finally managed to complete the BRILL report. It is in German for I am mailing right now copies of this report to Mr. Bohrer, Mr. Wittmer and to some old lady in Zweibruecken who might all be interested in old BRILL families and perhaps they can help me with the BRILLs or with the MAURERs. They all descend from BRILL.
I will be mailing, perhaps under separate cover, right now the following items re: BRILL, and ask you at the same time for more patience with the MAURERs, I was one day in Speyer [the regional archives], and one day at in Zweibruecken [another city and county archive] in order to collect BRILL and MAURER information and found lots of them.
...the essential point of this report is that your special Martin BRILL family did not hail from Boeckweiler and not from Hornbach. In an intensive search using forty different sources with BRILL information and hundreds of sources without such information I could finally figure out who was who with respect to the old BRILLs in Boeckweiler and in Hornbach, and Martin BRILL doesn't belong there.
There are other emigrants to the American colonies or also to distant European places that could be identified, namely: (report p. 6 bottom) Maria Barbara BRILL, bn. 1716 Boeckweiler, died 9 Oct 1796 in Frederick County, Maryland, with her husband Otto BUERGESSER, a 'runaway' former mayor of Bliesdalheim, and of Bierbach. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1754 but she may have come over in 1755 after him.
(report p. 8 middle) Philipp BRILL of Boeckweiler, died in Carolina, a Palatine settlement, he was in southern Spain in 1788.
(report, p. 8 middle) Heinrich BRILL of Boeckweiler resided in Amsterdam before 1788.
(report, p. 11 top) Johannes BRILL, shoemaker, resided Eckersweiler, Dunzweiler, and Ruschberg, all formerly in the principality of Pfalz-Zweibruecken, emigrated to New York in 1709/1710 with his family." Yours truly, Bernd Goelzer
Then follows a 14 page report in German on the various BRILL families of Boeckweiler and Hornbach. I compared this report to the research that Tedi Jeen and I have done this winter on the BRILLS and found about 20 different individuals identified by Goelzer which eluded us, plus he linked several families together that we could not do. A submission of about 700 BRILL names has been sent in for temple work. The entire genealogy of the BRILLs will be contributed to the Ancestral File at the genealogy library so that our work will not have been in vain.
I have written Dr. Goelzer and given him Germany clues which Tedi Jeen and I have turned up regarding Michael MAURER (father of Andrew MOWER) and we hope that he can help us with our MAURER connections.
Research Report on the GEISSINGER Family by Jim Petty:
5 June 1992
"Dear Jerry: After the last period of research I realized that I needed a better overall broad picture of the Geisinger/Kissinger family, so that I could better determine which families might belong to your group. So I started out on a program of identifying all of the Geisinger/Kissinger variations in the 1850 census for the entire country, and then began extracting the families that I found. Based on previous research, it appears that all or nearly all of the children of Charles and Catherine Geisinger were born in Maryland between 1770 and 1800. Therefore I felt that by searching all of the family names I could find each of those families that originated in Maryland, and then separate them through the records we have found in Maryland, and then determine the best possibilities for your family from the remaining names. In the process, we would also develop a good base collection on the family name, all of which can be sent to the temple.
Using the AIS Mass file, I found 150-200 entries, with about 25 or more different spelling variations of the name. For this search I kept it limited (ha) to names using the "s" or "z" sound in the name rather than including "t" sounds, as in Gittinger. Gittinger is a possible variation, but I have found a definite Gittinger spelling in the immigrants and I felt that focusing my efforts at this point was more productive.
Thus far in the extraction portion of the research I have only gotten through most of Pennsylvania, and will push on to other states soon. Enclosed is a copy of the names found thus far. Most of the Pennsylvania information pertains to families connected with or descending from the principal families by the name from Bucks and Lancaster Counties. I realize that your family is not really part of those groups but somewhere back there I wouldn't be surprized if some of them came from the same part of Germany as Charles.
You speculated in your letter about finding the marriage of Charles to Catherine in Catholic Church records. I agree that we have to hope that they married elsewhere, because all of the early records in York County and Frederick County, Maryland are lost. I noticed in the York County records the presence of a Rudisil (Russell?) family, and also of a Runsel family. You noted the Rudisily name in York County as well, so maybe that is something to look at and consider.
The references to Michael Maurer and wife Catherine look very promising. I hope they might prove correct. I have looked at that will of Catherine Gressinger in 1839, and have tried to identify more about her but haven't gotten very far. I think the thing to do would be to search the 1850 census for Jesse and Catherine Boaring and also for the probable combination of David and Susan Brown. This might give us ages, and tell us whether they would fit with your Catherine (Geissinger) Maurer [mother of Henry Mower Sr.].
Well, that's my report, short and sweet. There's not much I can say until I get further into the project and can begin analyzing results. Sincerely, Jim Petty, Genealogist"
Summary from Jerry MOWER: We are back to square one looking for the origins of Martin BRILL in Germany. I have been communicating with James McJohn, a BRILL descendant (genealogist) in Illinois and we are strategizing on how to proceed in finding the origins of Martin BRILL.
The Geissinger research looks good and I believe we will be able to further identify relatives of ours in the coming months. I will be moving ahead as much as our contributions allow. I also have been saving us money by meeting with Petty and asking him for a list of sources which he would like searched for Geissingers. If I can do some of the searching for free instead of hiring him, the price is definitely better! I'm trying to do all of that I can. I spent 50 hours researching in the Salt Lake Family History Library in June.
I recently have made great strides in locating more descendants of Mahala MOWER (who married George SHAW and stayed in Bedford, Pa). Specifically, more Morgan and Matilda (SHAW) MORSE family descendants have been discovered. I am putting these on family group sheets and adding them to the Master file of MOWERs. All who qualify for temple work are being submitted. Through a "chance" encounter through the mails with a volunteer genealogist at the Bedford Historical Society, I learned that this volunteer is married to a descendant of Mahala MOWER. One thing led to another and we are corresponding and she is sending me information from the family Bible and from otherwise unobtainable sources which have identified about 20 here-to-fore unknown great grandchildren of Mahala MOWER. I just kind of stand back and scratch my head when I see the unique ways in which these name are delivered to us.
The last sheet of this newsletter is a financial statement from Jim Petty. We hope to have a MAURER research report by Dr. Goelzer for the September Newsletter and perhaps another report from Petty by then. I plan on several more trips to Salt Lake to research before school starts. Thanks to all who are such great supporters! I think it is just a matter of time and we will find the answers we all would like to find.