Research in the German church records is a good source of information and often very rewarding for the information which it tells. The records are not easy to use, being handwritten in a script which was peculiar to the Germans; however, it can be learned, as several descendants have proved. The following information is due to Mrs. Margaret James Squires who found many of the Second Colony Germanna families in Germany.
The story centers around the small village of Neuenbürg in the Kraichtal. Today the village is in Baden. To confuse the issues, Baden has two Neuenbürgs which are only about twenty miles apart. This has come about because the Neuenbürg in which we are especially interested was originally on ecclesiastic lands belonging of the Catholic Church as represented by the Bishops of Speyer. Early in the 1800's these lands were ceded to the civil state of Baden which gave it two Neuenbürgs. If we regard Baden as a state (it is now Baden-Württemberg), then we can add the district or county name of Kraichtal to distinguish the Neuenbürg we want. It is the smaller of the two, having perhaps a few hundred inhabitants. The only church in town is Catholic and it is not clear where the Lutherans met. The following information is from the "Lutheran" records.
Anna Barbara Schön was born there on 29 Sept 1664. Her father was Quirin(us) Schön(e) and her mother was Maria Barbara, maiden name unknown. The letters in the parenthesis indicate spelling variations sometimes found in the records. Besides Anna Barbara, we know of three other children for a total of four:
Anna Barbara Schön, b. 29 Sept 1664
Peter Matthaeus Schön, b. 31 Aug 1667
Maria Barbara Schön, b. 17 July 1671, d. 3 March 1679
Jerg Martin Schön, b. 10 Jan 1682
The father died 17 May 1683 not long after the birth of the last child. Anna Barbara Schön, barely past her sixteenth birthday, married Johann Thomas Blanckenbühler on 2 Nov 1680 in Neuenbürg. He was the son of Matthias and Margaretha ( ? ) Blanckenbühler. This Matthias, a weaver, died 11 Aug 1691 at age 70 in Neuenbürg.
Four children of Anna Barbara (Schön) and Johann Thomas Blanckenbühler were baptized in Neuenbürg:
Hans Niclas Blanckenbühler, b. 2 Jan 1682
Hans Balthasar Blanckenbühler, b. April 1683
Hans Matthias Blanckenbühler, b. 29 Dec 1684
Anna Maria Blanckenbühler, b. 5 May 1687
When the fourth child was born, Anna Barbara was only twenty-two and a-half years old. As we will see, she certainly had a full life.
Three of the four children above are immediately recognized as Germanna 1717 immigrants. One of the surprises in the church records is that they showed that the fourth child, Anna Maria, was also a Germanna immigrant. But there were lots of other surprises also.
The name Blanckenbühler became many names in the colonies. Citing a few of them, there are: Blankenbaker, Blankenbeker, Blankenbeckler, Blankenbecler, Pickler, Bickler, Blank, Blanken and Baker.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.