JULY 1995 NEWSLETTER
LETTER FROM TRUDY SCHENK ON THE MAURER RESEARCH
Dear Jerry,
At this time, I have completed checking the parish records of the places you listed. Some have not been microfilmed yet. These are Schlossberg, Morsbach and Obereppach (parish for Kesselhof).
Of Kuenzelsau and Waldenburg, only some transcripts are available, these only include the time before 1680. I checked these earlier years and found no Maurers.
I also checked Hohebach which includes the small villages Wendischenhof, Hesslachshof, Weldingsfelden, Ailringen, Eisenhutsrot and Herlachshof. I found no other Maurers. This makes me feel even better off, taking the places Doettingen and Eschental for many of the emigrants in Trappe and the other places in Pennsylvania from 1736-1770.
It is time now to look into the Brill line. The lady who is working on the Emich line gave me her information. She has not cracked it yet. At first she thought the Alsace Brill are the right ones, but has changed her mind on that.
Did you hear from David Penrod of Ogden? He shares your Mower, Geisinger, Amick and Brill lines. I gave him your address.
Sincerely,
Trudy Schenk
I wrote Trudy back and told her NOT to research any AMICK lines. This is a branch of the family that not everyone is related to. I told her to research the BRILL line to which all of us ARE related to. We have a credit of 26 hours of research with Trudy. I do not think she can find the BRILL family in 26 hours of work--- especially since many, many hours have gone into researching the family in past years, BUT, if anyone on this earth can find Martin BRILL, it is Trudy Schenk!! She is great and I feel very confident we can find Martin and his family, but it might take some real work. We have not been afraid of that in the past however and I think we will be successful.
BRILL Family Reunion It is interesting how the work shifts and suddenly more information comes available to us. Out of the clear blue I received an invitation in the mail to attend the first ever BRILL Family Reunion in Virginia, which was planned for June 1995. I wrote a nice letter to Patty JONES who is organizing this reunion and told her of the work that we are doing on the BRILL line. I mentioned that I would not be able to drive back for the reunion, but that I wanted her to relate to all those attending that they have about 150 MOWER cousin families out West who are researching the origins of Martin BRILL.
The response was immediate from this woman. She phoned me one Sunday and we spent an hour on the phone discussing the BRILL research. She said that he had notebooks full of BRILL information and would photocopy all her material and send it to me. I received the first shipment the next week in the mail and it included about 250 BRILL descendants and their families. It fills out many gaps in the Martin BRILL master file I have and dozens of those names were born prior to 1885. I was just awe struck at how much material this wonderful lady has and she is so willing to share.
She said that she has just been keeping material for years and years and thought no one was interested much and then decided to have a reunion. She saw where I had contributed to the ancestral file and sent me an invitation. We are off to find Martin BRILL!