Recent discussions have mentioned the spelling of our Germanna names. One problem is that spelling in Germany was a bit "iffy" there also. Nor did the spellings stabilize on the spelling that was most common when our ancestors left. Or as the Garrs, as in the "Garr Genealogy" said, "There is no correct spelling of a name." In their own case, there seem to be at least three variations and their name is one of the simpler ones.
The Willheit family came from Schwaigern, a small market town in the Kraichgau. (In the eighteenth century, about 300 people were legal emigrants from this village to North America.) The name Willheit was undergoing an evolution in the preceding two centuries and appears in some of the records as Willert . In America it has gone into several forms such as Wilhoit , Wilhite , or Wilhide . The last name is more widely used in the Pennsylvania branch, not the Johann Michael Willheit branch of Virginia. The Willheit family has been researched in Germany by several people.
In the following accounts, much of the information comes from the research of Gary J. Zimmerman and Johni Cerny as published in their monographs, "Before Germanna." The Clore name was spelled as Klaar which I believe would be pronounced something like "Klahr", which is similar to Clore. The name Glore is also used in America. The Klaar/Clore family came from Gemmingen, which is a village amongst the Kraichgau villages and not far from Schwaigern.
The Kaifer family came from Zaberfeld though they had moved from the east as so many families did in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In Germany, the name appears as Käfer (pronounced as Kayfer in German). The spelling in Virginia is less certain because there was only one male, Michael, of this name and it appears in various forms. The spelling Kaifer is mostly a modern convenience. Zaberfeld is just outside the Kraichgau and was probably classified then as being in Württemberg (as it is today).
Saturday, while I was a tour guide at the Hans Herr House, seven of the visitors spoke German. All were from Germany, though two had been living for a while in the States. I found that one couple with their eight-year old daughter were staying the night not very far from where we live. So I invited them to have dinner with us. (I did call Eleanor and tell her before bringing them home.) Eleanor, as a treat for me, had planned on barbequed ribs and corn on the cob. Our guests agreed to go along with this menu though it might not have been what they would have ordered from a menu. Julius Haag (pronounced as a "Southerner" might say "hog") is a school teacher of English and he has made several trips to the US in connection with exchange students. Maria is a homemaker now for Julius and their daughter Leonie, 8. Maria is learning English and does very well. They live in the very southern part of Germany not far from the Swiss border, in particular, just north of Lake Constance. We certainly enjoyed our visitors.
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.