John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 663

The immigrant Christopher Zimmerman came to Virginia with his eldest son, John, (and his second wife Anna Elizabeth, and their son, Andrew).  John married Ursula Blankenbaker and their seven children were given in the last note.  The eldest of these seven children was another John who was married three times.  The first wife was Katharine (surname unknown); the second was Elizabeth Fewell; and the third was Jemima Rivercomb.  I am not sure how the wives are to be associated with the following thirteen children, of whom John was the father.  The children, in the order in which they are mentioned in John's will, are:

  1. Michael , born about 1757, married, first, Sarah (surname unknown), and then Elizabeth Huffman, on 28 Apr 1791.  She, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Michael, son of John Huffman, the 1714 colonist.  Michael is on the Culpeper/Madison tax lists until 1795, and then he disappears; however, he is mentioned in his father's 1812 will.
  2. Elizabeth , married William Panagar or Pennager.
  3. Margaret is sometimes not given a husband, but I have wondered if this was the Margaret (instead of her aunt Margaret) who may have married a Lipp.
  4. Reuben married Elizabeth Ziegler, who was perhaps his cousin (once removed).  Reuben is hard to distinguish from his older cousin (once removed), who was the son of Frederick.
  5. Nancy married Leonard Ziegler but she appeared in her father's will as Nancy Zimmerman.
  6. Jemima was confirmed at age 16 in 1782, but she does not appear in her father's will.
  7. Sarah married Mr. Scott, and she was dead by 1812, leaving four children:

    1. Henry,
    2. Catherine,
    3. Nancy, and
    4. Mary Scott.

  8. Susannah may have married James Ziegler, but some say she married James Brown.
  9. Mary .
  10. Catherine .
  11. Lucy married James Fewell.
  12. Eleanor (Nelly) married George Chilton 6 Feb 1807 in Culpeper Co.
  13. Mildred married Thomas Sutton 23 Feb 1803 in Culpeper Co.

Starting with John the father, and continuing with the children, one sees that there were several marriages outside the German community; however, there was a strong connection to the Zeigler family, whose members generally adopted the spelling of Ziglar.  Many of these Ziglar s moved to the South.

The senior John (who married Ursula) had a half sister, Barbara, who married Leonard Zeigler.  Thus, it would be desirable to study the Zeigler family, but first we will discuss the other son of John and Ursula, Christopher, who was named for his grandfather.

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.