It is always instructive to take lists of names that are rather complete for a community and to see if the list tells one anything new. For example, the list of petition signers at the Hebron Church in 1776 was a summary of the membership of the church at that time. Counting the number of occurrences of a particular name, as opposed to the expected number, can be informative. The list shows three Michael Utzes, whereas the published histories would indicate there should be only two. There were only three Utz families who could have had Michaels old enough to sign the petition. Two of the families already had Michaels in them. The family of George Utz (son of the immigrant George Utz) was not given a Michael Utz. Digging around some more, the family of George was based on his estate distribution, which did not occur until about thirty years later. It would not have been unusual for the unplaced Michael Utz to have died in the interval.
The Orange County (Virginia) tithe list of 1739 raised many questions and many of them are not answered. First, do not let the word "tithe" confuse the issues. The tithe list had nothing much to do with church matters, as it was a tax list first and foremost. As such, it should have some accuracy and completeness. (The taxes to be raised were for the support of the Church of England, the established church of the colony of Virginia.) The list was prepared in much the same way that a census taker makes up his list. The census is made by visiting each house in turn, usually moving from one to the next one. So, there is a physical continuity in the list in the sense that two adjacent names on the list are often close neighbors. It is possible to take a map of the property ownerships and to trace the paths of the list makers.
One of the problems in the Orange Co. 1739 tithables is that there are two Lewis Fishers, one who lives north of the Robinson River, and one who lives south of the Robinson River, but both still in the German community. Histories say there should be only one Lewis Fisher. What should we make of two Lewis Fishers? One school of thought says the list makers (two were involved) made an error. Another school of thought says the list makers knew what they were doing and for each of them to enter the name of Lewis Fisher there must have been good evidence. Opinion has been divided. In Beyond Germanna, material on both sides of this question has been published. I personally have been of the mind that there were two Lewis Fishers, who were father and son, and both of whom were married to Anna Barbaras. With the same name for the husband and wife, the distinction between the two could be hard, especially if the father left a minimum of records. One of the pieces of evidence for the two Lewis Fishers theory was a baptismal record found for the Zimmerman family in Sulzfeld, Baden, by Margaret James Squires. Sponsors at one of the baptisms were Ludwig Fischer and his wife Anna Barbara. Thus, there was a Lewis Fisher in Germany associated with a Germanna family. Probably it was this Lewis Fisher who immigrated with his son Lewis Fisher. The younger Lewis is the better known one (he married Anna Barbara Blankenbaker).
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.