The Germanna Thomas family has traditionally been obscure. It was a big step forward when Margaret James Squires found the origins of the family in Germany (as reported in " BEYOND GERMANNA "). Anna Maria Blanckenbühler married Johann Thomas (or Thomae) in Neuenbürg on 18 Nov 1711. At the time, she was twenty-four, since she was born to Johann Thomas Blanckenbühler and Anna Barbara Schön on 5 May 1687. The first child born to Anna Maria and Johann Thomas was Hans Wendel Thomas, on 17 Apr 1712. A second child, Ursula, born 8 May 1714, died the same day. The third child, Anna Magdalena, was born 24 Nov 1715.
No other children are known from Germany. From the will of Michael Kaifer, we know that Anna Maria had two other Thomas children, Michael and Margaret. Both of these are believed to be Virginia born, especially Michael for whom there is no naturalization record in Virginia. We know also from the will of Michael Kaifer that Anna Maria, who married Michael after John Thomas died, had at least five children by Michael. Thus Anna Maria delivered at least ten children, and the first one was when she was 24 years old. Therefore one postulates that she had her children at about two year intervals and there could hardly have been any breaks in this rhythm. Therefore, Michael and Margaret were born about 1717 and 1719 but the sequence is uncertain. Or stated in another way, we could say that Michael and Margaret were born ca 1718 and probably we would not be in error by more than one year for each of them.
We usually say that the Thomas family came to Virginia in 1717 but we have no proof of this. It seems logical that they would have come with Anna Maria's mother, stepfather, three brothers, and her half-siblings, all of whom are documented as coming in 1717. John Thomas, the father, must have died in Virginia about 1720. Anna Maria was probably married to Michael Kaifer by 1721, when she was 34 years old, for she was the mother of at least five children after that date.
John Thomas (the son, Johann Wendel) and Michael Thomas had a land patent in their own name in 1726. At this time, John was 14 years old and Michael was about 8 years old. The patent says nothing about the boys being minors. Probably their relatives assisted them in locating and claiming this land which was next to their uncles. It was not adjacent to Michael Kaifer to whom their mother was certainly married by this time. It is possible that the boys, John and Michael, were in the homes of their uncles or their grandmother and not in their stepfather's home. However, the will of Michael Kaifer in no way suggests that the boys were estranged.
Contrary to the usual case, more is known about the families of Anna Magdalena and Margaret than about the families of John and Michael. Anna Magdalena married Michael Smith and Margaret married Henry Aylor (thanks to the research of Nancy Dodge and others). Since Michael Smith and Henry Aylor are the ancestors of all within their families, this means that the Michael Smiths and Aylor descendants have a Thomas ancestor (and a Blankenbaker ancestor). The families of John (Jr.) and Michael Thomas are much less certain.
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.