John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 185

Continuing in the list of names of emigrants from the Siegen area in 1709,

  1. Catharina Heyl of Wilnsdorf.

  2. Herman Hoffman of Oberfischbach.

  3. Johann Eberhard Jung (Jones: "the association of names on lists suggests this man may have been a Siegen family".)

  4. Henrich Ohrendorff of Oberfischbach.

  5. Henrich Schramm of Wilnsdorf.

  6. Hyeronimus Weller of Zeppenfeld.  There are mentions of the family at Oberfischbach.  A sponsor of Weller's sister was Agnes Holtzklau at Salchendorf.  Hyeronimus Weller married Anna Julian, d/o Jacob Cuntz.

  7. Johannes Zeller who married, at Siegen, Anna Catharina Herber.

Also 107 people emigrated from the Nassau-Dillenburg region in 1709.  Dillenburg is located 15 miles southeast of Siegen.  There are also several mentions of Burbach, 10 miles south of Siegen, as being the home in 1709 of emigrants.

Some of the names and places above are familiar to students of the First Germanna Colony.  But even in the case of similar, or the same, names, no claim for a close relationship is made with the exception of the Hägers.  Johann Friderich Häger, above, is known to be the son of Rev. Henry Haeger of the 1714 Colony.  Also Johann Henrich Haeger, above, was a nephew of the Sr. Rev. Haeger and a first cousin of the Jr. Rev. Johann Friderich Häger.  Thus, in this case, the desire for reuniting the family was probably a major motivation for the trip in 1713.

It is interesting to note that some of the place names and the surnames of the First Colony people are echos of each other.  Whether the village was named for the family or the family for the village is not clear.  In the case of Fischbach, which means "fish brook", the name would seem to be for a geographical feature.  The surname probably arose from living in or at Fischbach; however, the name Fischbach, which describes a common situation, is probably not unique.

By 1713, when the First Colony left the area of Siegen, there would have been much discussion of the emigration of this number of people in 1709.  In that time, there would have been time for letters to be sent back to Germany.  Thus Rev. Häger in Germany had probably heard from his son in New York.  One reaction probably went along the lines of, "If they can do it, I can do it."

Also, the emigration of just one individual from a village was rare.  Mutual support was provided by more than one person.

Next time, we will look at some of the emigrants from the regions of the Second Colony.

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.