Christopher Zimmerman, see the last note, was married twice. From the first wife, Dorothy Rottle, there was one surviving son, John. Christopher married again in Sulzfeld, Baden, and came with his second wife, Anna Elizabeth Albrecht, and the son, John. Later in Virginia, Andrew, Frederick, Barbara, Christopher (Jr.), Elizabeth and Katherine were born. The last of these births was probably around 1730.
The eldest son, John, may not have gotten on well with his stepmother for he moved out of the Mt. Pony area to the Robinson River community where he married Ursula Blankenbaker. But maybe the sequence was just the opposite, to find a wife, he had to go to the Robinson River community. Then he stayed there taking out a land patent in 1734 when he was 23.
John and Ursula (Blankenbaker) had seven children, John, Dorothy, Elizabeth, Christopher, Mary (did not marry), Margaret (marriage unknown) and Rosanna. Generally the children married Germans such as Tanner, Holtzclaw, etc.
In the second family: There is no record for Andrew after 1717; Frederick married Sarah ___, and they had three children; Reuben may have married Mary Yates Carter, Frederick who married Judith Bourne and moved to Kentucky in 1792; and Christopher (no further information).
Also in the second family, Barbara married Leonard Ziegler, but details past this point are scarce. Still in the second family, Christopher, Jr. did not marry, but he had close relationships to the Brown and Kabler family to judge by his will. The families for Elizabeth and Katherine are not clear, even starting with their husbands.
The great-grandchildren of the immigrant Christopher through the son, John, who lived in a Germanic community, married these surnames: Huffman, Penager, Ziegler, Ziegler, Scott, Ziegler, Fewell, Chilton, and Sutton. Also, House, Tanner, Rouse, Crigler, Crigler, Rouse, Beeman, Crisler and Taylor. This does not trace out the descendants of Dorothy (John, Christopher) who married Jacob Tanner or Elizabeth (John, Christopher) who married Joseph Holtzclaw.
The great-grandchildren through the second family include ones who married Carter, Felder, Somergall, Twisdell, Twisdell, Bourne, Jennings, Dinwiddle, Coiner, Combs, and Lessly. Thus, when the great-grandchildren of the immigrant married, the choice of the spouse was reflected strongly by the nature of the community where they lived. Some of these choices were reflected in the first generation after the immigrant where there was a split in the nationalities. In the second generation, the differences are more pronounced and by the third generation after the immigrant, the choice is not based on origin but on the current community.
But this process is strongly influenced by the character of the community. In my own personal case, my grandfather, who died in 1918, was descended only from the Germanna people. Up to his birth, the community contained a large percentage of Germans. But when he was married, he was living in a community which was decidedly English so he married a woman of English descent (a Mayfield).
There was a real effort to hold the immigrants' culture for as long as possible. It amazes us how long this process can go on. Klaus Wust recounts the internal cultural battles in his excellent book, " The Virginia Germans ". One German man in his will offered fifty pounds to a son if he married a German woman.
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.