When one starts scratching beneath the surface, there were many German families in the area that was pioneered by the original settlers in the Virginia Piedmont. From the beginning I have taken the view that all of these were to be counted as Germanna people even though many of them did not come to the area until close to the time of the Revolution. The enumeration of these people continues.
One family that should not be counted is John Langenbuehl and his wife Barbara. The idea that there was such an individual was put forth by B.C. Holtzclaw in the Germanna Records, in Number Six to be exact. This was a mistake resulting from the difficulty of reading the German script in the church records. The name Langenbuehl is really, in the modern spelling, Blankenbaker. The German script for the capital letter "B" looks much like our modern script letter "L". This is a warning to us as we trace individuals; spelling and penmanship may confuse us.
The Lotspeich family is truly an international family and I never cease to marvel that the pieces were ever put together. Three children of Conrad Lotspeich and Catharina Elisabetha Ladenberger, born at Frankenthal in the Palatinate, were immigrants to America. They were Johann Wilhelm, born 1740, Johanna Friederika, born 1744, and Johann Christoph, born 1750. There were three other children but the named three came to Virginia where Friederika married John Francis Lucas Jacoby, and William Lotspeich married Magdalena Klug, the daughter of Rev. Klug. J.C. Lotspeich's wife's given name was Rebecca Barbara according to Don McNeil. Their mother's brother was a merchant in London who left his estate to his sister's children. This will was the essential link in tying the family together.
John Marbes received land from John Michael Smith, Jr. Apparently John Marbes had married Catherine Smith, the daughter of Michael Smith. In the back of the Hebron Church Register it states that Sara was the daughter of Catharina Marbes but that the mother admitted her husband was not the father of the child. The sponsors at the baptism of Sara include Jacob Holtzclaw (s/o the immigrant) and his wife Susanna Thomas, who was a cousin of Catharina.
Mathias Mauck (Mock, Mack, etc.) and his wife, Barbara, appear in Culpeper Co. deeds in 1772, 1774 and 1779. George Clore, son of John, and grandson of the 1717 Michael Clore, married Barbara Mauck. Daniel Mauck married Barbara Harnsberger, the daughter of Stephen and granddaughter of the 1717 immigrant John Harnsberger. (There is a very active Mock research group on the Internet.)
Michael Meyerhoeffer became the pastor of the Lutheran Church in 1815.
Francis Michael was granted 400 acres in the Great Fork of the Rappahannock River in 1728. The spelling of the name in the Virginia records, Mycall, Mycill, Mickell and his appearance with some of the Germans suggests that the name may have been Michel, not Michael. The early associate of Graffenried was Franz Ludwig Michel. Michel is the one who though he found silver in Virginia (in the Shenandoah Valley) and who sparked the imagination of Graffenried leading to the recruitment of the members of the First Germanna Colony. Possibly this early Francis Michael in Virginia was this one-time associate of Graffenried.
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.