A few notes ago, there was a mention of how some of the Second Germanna Colony members were related. Earlier, a tentative list of the First Colony members was given. There were several relationships in the group which were not mentioned at the time. A few of these relationships, not an exhaustive list, will be given.
Melchoir Brombach (Brumback) was the son of Johannes Brombach of Müsen and Anna Margarete Kemper who was an aunt of John Kemper, another 1714 immigrant. So Melchoir and John Kemper were cousins. Melchoir probably married Maria Elisabeth Fischbach, see below.
Phillip Fischbach (Fishback) was married to Elizabeth (Elsbeth) Heimbach. Their daughter, Anna Elisabeth, married Hans Jacob Richter (Rector) and all of these people moved to Virginia in 1714. Another daughter of Phillip and Elizabeth was Maria Elizabeth who probably married Melchoir Brumback above. The sons John and Harmon Fishback were bachelors when they came. The daughter Maria Elisabeth (duplicated name) probably married John Spilman in Virginia.
Hans Jacob Holzklau (Jacob Holtzclaw and other spellings) married Anna Margaretha Otterbach, daughter of the immigrants Hermann Otterbach and Elisabeth Heimbach.
Johannes Kemper was a bachelor but related to Melchoir Brombach, above.
Jost Kuntze (Joseph Cuntze, Coons) was the son of Johannes Kuntze and Elisabeth Schuster, see mention of Schusters below.
This note is being written on the unproven assumption that the Johann Hermann Otterbach family is the "missing" First Colony family. He married Elisabeth Heimbach, daughter of Phillip Heimbach and Maria Catharina Fischbach. Hermann's daughter, Anna Margaret, married Hans Jacob Holzklau. In Virginia, several of the other daughters married men of the First Colony.
Later immigrant Henry Huffman was married to Elizabeth Catherina Schuster so that Henry Huffman and his wife were both related to people in Virginia. [A personal comment from the author: Though I have no ancestors in the First Colony, I am descended from Henry Huffman and Elizabeth Catherina Schuster. As a result I am related to several of the First Colony families, including the Huffmans, Spilmans, Crims (a later family) and the Coons, all a result of relationships from Germany.]
While some of the families in the First Colony seem to be unrelated to the other families, the general rule was that many members of the group were related, in some cases quite closely. This is not unusual fact; it is repeated over and over in the immigration patterns to America. It holds true within the First and Second Germanna Colonies. It also holds true that many of the later comers were related to the ones already here.
Because the Otterbach family appears to have had a relative in the group and because they disappear from the church records in Germany after 1713, it is logical that they are the missing family.
No guarantees are made about the information above. Perhaps others can correct or add to the data.
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.