One other family came to Virginia from Neuenbürg, the Sheible family which consisted of the father, mother and three daughters. Mrs. Squires had the hunch that the family might be related to the Blankenbakers but she could not prove it. Of the five daughters born to the Sheibles in Neuenbürg, two died there, leaving three to emigrate.
A high percentage of the Neuenbürg residents eventually end up in Virginia. It is instructive to compare those leaving with those arriving. Cyriacus Fleshman and his wife Anna Barbara both arrived in Virginia making two who left and two who arrived. The name was only slightly distorted, being recorded as Coz Jacob Floschman. Their two children, John Peter and Maria Catharina, also arrived safely making four who left and four who arrived. The eldest son of Anna Barbara, John Nicholas, with his wife Apollonia and son Zacharias were three more to leave and to arrive for totals of seven and seven. Second son, Bathasar, had no known family on leaving but did arrive with a wife. Eight and eight. Third son, Matthias, with Anna Maria and George, left and arrived. Eleven and eleven. Fourth son, Henry Schlucter had no known wife in Germany (he was 20 years old) and he arrrived safely. Twelve and twelve.
Eldest daughter Anna Maria with husband John Thomas and children John and Anna Magdalena were in Germany but it is unknown if they came in 1717. In fact there is no absolute proof that John Thomas, the father, ever did make it to Virginia. We do know that the father and mother had two more children, one of whom was a son Michael. Michael was not naturalized, suggesting he was born in Virginia and suggesting that his father did come to Virginia.
Just to round out the Neuenbürg crowd, let us add in the Sheibles who arrived as the Chively family, complete with all five. This brings the count up to sixteen and sixteen. (If we did count the Thomases as probables, they would add four more.) Thus the little village of Neuenbürg sent along 20 people to the New World and all 20 arrived.
From this, one concludes that the death rate on the trip was not as bad as some people have stated. There was a wide spectrum of ages included. George Sheible was 47 years old, and his wife was perhaps of a similar age. Anna Barbara, now married to Cyriacus Fleshman, was 53 years old. Among the younger members, the grandchildren of Anna Barbara were very young.
This little village was to have a far reaching impact on the genealogy of the Second Germanna Colony. For example, three-quarters of the Garr descendants can claim descent from Anna Barbara. We will explore more examples of this later.
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.