DECEMBER 1992 NEWSLETTER
Tedi Jeen and I travelled to Salt Lake in November and spent 2 days researching at the Family History Library. I met with James Petty, our genealogist and we discussed his research and progress. He will have a research report for us early this month. He is compiling a list of Bedford Co., Pa items he would like to have searched which are not in the FHL at Salt Lake. Jim Boor, the genealogist who lives in Bedford Co. will search those sources for us.
I have been active researching on several fronts. In regards to the Martin BRILL line, I have located another cousin of ours who lives in White Salmon, Washington. We welcome Julia KENNEDY into our association. Julia is a descendant of Martin BRILL through Christopher BRILL's daughter Anna Margaret BRILL who married Daniel LONG. She sent me a computer file which adds her genealogy to ours and brings our total to 14,628 individuals on our Michael MAURER computer file. All of these individuals are tied to Michael MAURER through blood or marriage. I am systematically going through the file and working on those lines.
Tedi Jeen and I were successful in researching about 80 descendants of Maria Elisabeth MAURER who married Mathias GRISSO. Maria is a daughter of Michael MAURER. She and Mathias moved to Botetourt Co., Va and that is where we picked up the trail of their descendants. We found quite a few descendants in Floyd Co., Va and Roanoke Co., Va and we also located some of the family had moved on to Wabash Co., Indiana. These have been added into the file and we will be processing them soon for submission to the Ancestral File and IGI. When I am able to get names on the Ancestral File, we soon link up to others who tie into the line. This has been very helpful in furthering the line and has greatly helped our research.
I have been in correspondence with Clyde HILLIGOSS of East Moline, Illinois. He is also a cousin of ours. He has an avid interest in genealogy and we are working on the DIEHL, and various Bedford County lines. Clyde's relative is trying to qualify our Andrew MAURER so she can be admitted to the Daughters of the American Revolution. I have been supplying them with documentation. Clyde has been helpful in discovering our Bedford County roots.
I have also been corresponding with Duke CLARK of Millersville, Maryland regarding the Mahala MOWER line. Over the past two years, Duke has sent me many hundreds of names which tie into our line. He has recently been helping me develop the MEARKLE lines which are strongly linked to Mahala MOWER. These Bedford County lines will add more descendants to our file. Duke is trying to talk me into submitting the documentation we have on Andrew MAURER to the National Genealogical Society for publication in their bulletin as an article. I have considered doing this because such national exposure of the individuals involved in our lineage could result in major breakthroughs if other people tie into our line or have information about our line. I just haven't wanted to spend the time right now polishing up the article, crossing all the "t's" and dotting the "i's" so that all the documentation is in proper form and well footnoted.
Recently I have received communication from Ruth BRINKERHOFF of Fairview, Utah who is working on the Elizabeth HALL/Henry MOWER Jr. line. For those of you interested in this line, Ruth has made submissions of many TUTTLE, COCKERHAM, and associated names to Manti where any of you who wish can work on those lines. I have allotted myself a few hours a week to help out on this line and I have been doing some limited research in Stokes Co., North Carolina records identifying TUTTLE families. Elvin PERKINS of Greensboro, NC is helping us with the research on that end of the line and has found the Benjamin CANNON family for us as was mentioned in the last newsletter. We expect large strides forward on this line this coming year.
I expect a communication from Dr. Bernd GOELZER of France within the next month or so on his research on the possible MAURER connections we have identified in Hornbach, Germany. As I said earlier, it appears that we are not linked to those individuals, but we are going to submit those genealogies to the Church so that we may link up with other researchers who are working on those lines.
On my own, I have been trying another method to identify the German origins of Michael MAURER. I entered a querie in a German research publication. Last year I joined the research society called the Palatines to America (Palatines are Germans who left the Rhine River Valley about 1700 -1750 and came to America.) This is the querie that will be published:
"Seek information on origins of Andrew KALB who witnessed the baptism of Michael MAURER's son in 1753, Bucks Co., Pa. Believe he immigrated 14 Sep 1751 on Duke of Bedford. Also need information on Martin CALB who witnessed the baptism of Michael MAURER's daughter in Montgomery Co., Pa in 1748. May have immigrated 4 Sep 1728 on the Albany."
Such a querie is likely to be read by individuals doing research in German immigrations and quite likely someone out there is researching the KALB family--which by the way ended up spelling their name CULP by the time they ended up in Bedford Co., Pa in the 1800's. Some of the CULP family ended up marrying into the AMICK line in Bedford Co. The point of my querie is to identify where the KALB family came from and very likely the MAURER family is nearby. If the KALBs were witnessing MAURER christenings---especially two of Michael MAURER's christenings---then possibly Anna Elisabeth, (Michael's wife) was a KALB, and if that is not the case, they very well may have known each other in Germany and thus associated on this side of the ocean also. Anyway, the German research books I have been reading lately all tell me that a good way to locate your ancestor is to locate the origins of others with whom he or she associated in America. To find the KALBs may lead to finding the MAURERs.
I shall finish this newsletter with an interesting story about the GRISSO family. Tedi Jeen and I were pouring over the books one afternoon in the Salt Lake FHL looking for GRISSO marriages. She was studying a two volume set on Botetourt Co., Va marriages and had spent about 2 hours studying these books. She finally quit and decided to search another record when she said to me that she felt that she ought to pick up the books and look at them again and what did I think about her doing that (considering she had just spent a large amount of time doing just that). I told her she ought to follow her prompting. She started again searching the marriage volumes and the second time through she ran onto the marriage of Jacob GRISSO, the son of Mathias and Maria Elisabeth (MAURER) GRISSO. The marriage was recorded under the name Jacob CRESSO, thus explaining how she missed it the first time through. His wife's name and data checked out however, thus proving this was the person we needed to find. Got to follow those feelings when doing genealogy! Thanks again to you all! Summary report of the year's research next time.