In 1830, John Wesley Garr, M.D., was at work on the Garr genealogy. He was able to locate two original documents, letters of reference, which Andreas Gar had brought from Bavaria in 1732. One was from his pastor and the other was from the civil authorities. Of course, they were in German script which by this time was probably unintelligible to Dr. Garr. But he was able to find a translator and so he learned the origins of the family.
This genealogical work continued until his son, John Calhoun Garr, published the Garr Genealogy in 1894. Actually the book was entitled, " Genealogy of the Descendants of John Gar or More Particularly of His Son, Andreas Gaar, Who Immigrated from Bavaria to America in 1732 ". With about 16,000 descendants identified, the work is the earliest major Germanna family volume.
The accuracy of the book is quite good, but not perfect. The book has been reprinted several times and is still in demand. In fact, I have just received an inquiry this past week from a person who is trying to locate a copy for sale. If you know of copies for sale, perhaps you could advertize here.
The accuracy in the book is high enough that people have come to trust it blindly. Today I want to put out a word of warning that the book does contains errors. The ones to be discussed today are not major but they could have an impact on structuring families. One family in particular is that of Michael Blankenbaker who married the daughter of the immigrant, Elizabeth Barbara Gaar/Garr. Her birth, from the church records, was 11 Feb 1730 so that she was a wee girl when she came to America. The authors gave each of their seven children, all daughters, a birth year which, it appears, they estimated without tangible evidence. They did not realize that there was tangible evidence for some of the daughters. All of these daughters appear in Michael's estate distribution.
Jemima was estimated at 1745; Mary at 1747; Margaret was given a specific date of 28 Nov 1749; Elizabeth 1753; Christina 1760; and Rosanna 1763. What the authors did not realize was that three of the girls had confirmations at the Lutheran Church. That the girls being confirmed were Michael's daughters comes from the estate distribution plus the lack of these names in other Garr families. Rosanna was confirmed in 1785 at age 18 so her birth year would be 1766/7 and not 1763. Eleanor was confirmed at 16 in 1782 so she was born 1765/6, not 1755, which is a ten-year difference. Jemima was confirmed in 1777, age not specified, but say 17 which would yield a birth year of about 1760, not 1745.
Putting it all together and omitting some of the details here, I would put the birth years as:
Margaret 1749,
Elizabeth 1752,
Mary 1754,
Jemima 1760,
Christina 1763,
Eleanor 1765,
Rosanna 1767.
Jemima's marriage(s) may need reexamination in light of these dates. With the fifteen-year adjustment, her two marriages are suspect. (It has been reported that she married first Michael Crigler and second, Absolum Utz.)
The moral of the story is that even the best of the researchers are suspect.
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.