JANUARY 1993 NEWSLETTER
Thanks to all who have written during the holidays and month of December. Thanks to those who are helping fund the research efforts as we search for the clues which will lead us to our ancestors. Your continued help is much appreciated.
Research Summary for GEISSINGERs: We have made the best effort possible in finding the descendants of Charles GEISSINGER. When I receive Jim PETTY's report, I am going to pull him off the track of tracing the descendants of Charles. We identified about 450 GEISSINGERs on the 1850 Census. We investigated all the possible name spellings for this name that we could. 300 of these individuals have been submitted to the Church. Those names have just been cleared as of 15th of December at these temples: Washington, Denver, Provo, Jordan River, Salt Lake, Ogden, Idaho Falls, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Chicago. We are hoping that when these persons appear on the next edition of the International Genealogical Index or the next edition of the Ancestral File, that someone out there researching will be able to tie into the line and provide us with information. I have another 150 or so additional individuals to submit, but I will wait a couple of months and then submit them to give everyone a chance to get these done.
RESEARCH REPORT FROM DR. GOELZER REGARDING GERMAN MAURER FAMILY 17 November 1992: Dear Mr. Mower, I have your letter of 8 October 1992 with the info on Karl GEISSINGER...with respect to Karl GEISSINGER, I congratulate you to having such interesting ancestors and I wish you everything well, but this is outside my scope and possibilities. In my opinion there is a chance that he hailed from Wuerttemberg, for all three places named Geisingen lie down there and I would suggest that you should mail this extremely interesting GEISSINGER info sheet to my friend: Friedrich R. WOLLMERHAEUSER in Oberdischingen. Ask for his assistance. My best greetings to him...
I was in the state archives in Speyer on the Rhine for the BRILL/MAURER research and in the archives in Zweibruecken that same day for the same purpose...The main result of my research is that there was a glazier Michel MAURER in Hornbach who might be the emigrant--or not. Right now we can't decide. Perhaps years from now if we would have a systematical index and access to: 1. Hornbach civil registration records 1798-1830 with death certificates (several thousand records). 2. Hornbach orphans office records 1750's-1798 (50,000 half torn pages, completely unindexed) 3. The Hornbach city deed books, 1753-1798 (2000 pages) then we would perhaps be able to prove that the Michel MAURER of Hornbach stayed, by perhaps finding death certificates for his children. On the other hand there is little hope to find proof that he emigrated in those records. END OF REPORT
Dr. GOELZER then included 12 typed pages of documentation of the MAURER families he identified in the Hornbach area. I put that information on the computer in the file I have entitled: MAURER Probables. This file includes all MAURERs we have identified that we can't definitely link to. I will make a submission of this file to the Church also, since we have the information we need for submission, and with the hope that other researchers will tie into these lines and help us out. We'll just try another angle to identify our Michael MAURER.
We have made a submission of Mathias and Maria Elizabeth (MAURER) GRISSO descendants from the Floyd, Botetourt, Roanoke, Co.'s in Virginia. Maria was the daughter of Michael MAURER and a sister to Andrew MOWER. Those names will be processed most likely in January. Some are currently at Idaho Falls where Mark HOPKINS, Lester SILER, and others are working on those names. More are designated for Jordan River and Provo.
In an effort to acquire more evidence on our MAURER and BRILL lines, I am going to work in the next couple of months in the Montgomery Co., Lehigh Co., Berks Co., and Northampton Co., Pennsylvania records extracting all MAURER and BRILL information. This is done to uncover any here-to-fore unknown information which might lead us to our ancestors. We know that our Michael MAURER lived in 1745-1768 in a small area which borders where these 4 counties join, but it is my understanding that no one in our family has done a thorough investigation of the records of those counties. What has been done so far is to investigate the Church records where Michael lived, but that is about all.
Our effort this year has been productive in my estimation. We have learned a lot about the families on our line. We thought we had the MAURER and BRILL families located in Germany at one time, but then that proved negative. We have made great strides on the Mahala MOWER line of descendants and we will be ready this winter to submit many of those lines to the Church. We already have a lot of people connecting into us on those lines. Specifically this week I have received a large packet of obituary material from Bedford Co., Pa regarding the MEARKLE line which married to the Mahala MOWER line. I have quite a submission to make here. These are cousins of ours. We plan on hiring our Bedford Co., genealogist, Jim BOOR, to research some of the records we need to view in Bedford County, Pa which aren't in the FHL at Salt Lake. I have located an unusual bit of information that needs to be investigated---a GEISSINGER marriage in 1834 in Bedford Co., Pa into the SNYDER family. Very likely we are related here and perhaps SNYDER records exist which we haven't studied yet.
Another great experience in December as we researched at the FHL in Salt Lake. Tedi Jeen found the record containing several dozen BRILL marriages in Frederick Co., Virginia which linked us up to Henry BRILL, the son of Martin BRILL. I spent time studying census records and found about 150 descendants of Henry BRILL, then I made a connecting link to the BRILL families in Hampshire Co., Va which is right next door and picked up several hundred additional BRILL descendants. All of these are bloodline descendants of Martin BRILL, now linked definitely to him.
Several years ago I received a photocopy of part of a book on the Capon Valley in Hampshire Co., Va which had many hundreds of BRILLs in it. Not being able to connect into those lines, I filed it. Now we are connected to all of the BRILLs in the Capon Valley book. All are descendants of Martin BRILL. Rather incredible. It will take me the Christmas vacation to get all of this on computer and then most of the winter to do some research to pick up dates not given in the book and to recheck information against other records---but I estimate 500 individuals from this connecting evidence we have just received. I have ordered into our branch library in Afton several films from the FHL at Salt Lake which will give me a lot of information. This will save me a trip to Salt Lake during the holidays and allow me to spend a lot of time researching during our Christmas vacation.
I wrote the Mennonite Historical Library in Montgomery Co., Pa regarding Martin KALB. You will remember that he witnessed the christening of Michael MAURER's daughter. Also an Andrew KALB witnessed the christening of our Andrew MOWER. They wrote that they have some records on the KALB family, but they do not have his origin in Germany. What they did send to me was valuable however. I learned that Martin KALB had a son named Andrew. This may mean that Michael MAURER's wife, Anna Elisabeth, might have been a KALB. Perhaps she is a sister to Martin or a sister to Andrew KALB. The Mennonite Library gave me further clues and places to write for more information and I am pursuing those clues. This is a synopsis of what they sent me on Martin KALB:
Record from Mennonite Historical Center and Library Received 7 Dec 1992 Martin KALB
Parents Born Witnesses
Martin CULP and Catharine 8 Apr 1751 Parents Catharine
Martin and wife 28 Apr 1753 Parents Mary
Martin CULP and Anna 26 May 1754 Adam BAUCHER Anna Barbara Anna Barbara
Martin KOLB, Anna Maria 11 Mar 1756 Catharine BEISHER Catharine Eliz.
Martin KOLB, Maria 1 Mar 1758 Michael WIDDERRECHT Maria Magdalena and wife
Martin KOLB, Maria 1 May 1760 Parents Anna Maria
Will dated 29 Mar 1775 (L.D.S.) Wilma CULP
Martin KOLB md. ___________ Children: Adam, Andrew, John, Jacob, Barbara
Augustus Lutheran Records Children of Martin KALB: Adam, confirmed 1754 age 15 years Maria Barbara m. John Ludwig SCHUETTLER 28 Oct 1755 Jacob, confirmed 6 May 1759 age 15
New Hanover Lutheran Church Records--Confirmed in 1744: Andreas KALB, Martin KALB's son Elias KALB, Martin KALB's son
It appears that Martin KALB had 2 marriages and perhaps his first wife died, thus he had an earlier marriage with Catharine that produced Andreas and Elias, Maria Barbara, Adam and Jacob and that a 2nd marriage in the 1750's that produced the other children listed as christened during this time. What would cause 2 different KALB men to witness christenings for Michael MAURER? Either they were close friends of the family (perhaps meaning European ties before immigration) or they were relatives (more likely).