John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 593

Looking at the birth and baptismal records at the German Lutheran Church for the first seven children of John Gaar and his wife Margaret Wilhoit, we have:

  1. Lawrence , b. 16 Nov 1767.  The sponsors were Michael Gaar (his cousin), George Crisler (his cousin), Eve Fisher (her sister), and Mary Carpenter (her cousin).  [In the relationships here, the reference is always to the parents so "his" refers to John and "her" refers to Margaret, the parents of the child.]
  2. Abraham , b. 28 Feb 1769.  The sponsors were Michael Carpenter (his cousin-in-law, married to Mary Crisler), and Eve Fisher (her sister, who married Bernard Fisher).  It was unusual to have only two sponsors, but perhaps the baptism was rushed.
  3. John , b. 16 Mar 1771.  The sponsors were Nicholas Yager (her brother-in-law who married Susanna), George Crisler (his cousin), Eve Fisher (her sister), and Mary Carpenter (her cousin, who married Wm. Carpenter).
  4. Aaron , b. 20 Jan 1773.  The sponsors were Michael Carpenter (his cousin-in-law), George Crisler (his cousin), Susanna Yager (her sister), and Eve Fisher (her sister).
  5. Elizabeth , b. 25 Jan 1775.  The sponsors were Nicholas Yager (her brother-in-law), Bernard Fisher (her brother-in-law), Magdalena Crisler (his cousin-in-law, who married George Crisler), and Mary Carpenter (her cousin).
  6. In the church records, the sixth child is unnamed, but was born 8 Nov 1776.  In the Garr Genealogy, this child is Leanna , with the same birth date.  The sponsors were George Crisler (his cousin), Michael Carpenter (his cousin-in-law), Susanna Yager (her sister), and Eve Fisher (her sister).  The record for this child is duplicated in the church register (but that is another story).
  7. The seventh child in the church records is Lea , b. 16 Apr 1778.  No child appears in the Garr Genealogy with this birthday.  The sponsors were Bernard Fisher (her brother-in-law), Nicholas Yager (her brother-in-law), Mary Carpenter (her cousin), and Anna Crisler (his cousin, whose full given name was Anna Magdalena).

The Garr Genealogy says there was a total of twelve children, but only the seven here are in the church register.

Note some points about the choice of the sponsors.  They were all of the same generation as the parents.  They were chosen from siblings or cousins of the parents or from spouses of the siblings or cousins.  Of the twenty-six choices made for sponsors, half of them were from cousins or the cousin's spouses.  Nine of the twenty-six were related by marriage and not by blood.  This is the classic pattern of sponsorship at the church.  Knowing this, we can often detect or confirm relationships among people.

Andrew Garr was never a sponsor for his brother John's children, a situation which makes one wonder.  The situation is even more strange when one considers that Andrew's wife was Christina Wilhoit who was a sister of Margaret.

This little exercise started primarily to see if Eve and Elizabeth, John Gaar's sisters, could be detected.  They do not appear as sponsors.

[There will be no note tomorrow as I will be leaving early for the Pennsylvania Chapter meeting of the Palatines to America.  A few weeks ago, the Virginia Chapter meeting of PalAm was mentioned which was a very good meeting.]

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.