My attention was drawn to Jacob Blankenbaker upon reading the information about him in Germanna Record 13. Of the two Jacobs in the eighteenth century Virginia, this was the younger one, a nephew of the other. It did not take long to realize that the information about him in the Record was incorrect. He did not marry Elizabeth Weaver, and he did not move to Kentucky (that was his uncle). Looking in the German Lutheran church records (now called Hebron), one is struck by the close association between Jacob and the Reiners. And so, my first introduction to the Reiners was made.
When Daniel Reiner and his wife Elizabeth had four children baptized, from 1788 to 1794, Jacob Blankenbaker was a sponsor on three occasions, and once he was joined by his wife, Elizabeth. In fact, on this occasion, they were the only sponsors. Then, for the baptism of Mary and Daniel, the two children of Jacob and his wife, in the Register, three of the five sponsors have the name Reiner. (At these baptisms, the wife of Jacob is not named, but we know she was Elizabeth from the recording of her name at the baptism of Aaron Reiner.)
Daniel Reiner married Elizabeth Fleshman, which is an easy claim to believe, since the Fleshman name is common at the baptism of Daniel and Elizabeth's children. This leaves the best probability to be that Jacob's wife was Elizabeth Reiner.
As we have been looking at the Reiners, we observed that the Reiners and the Fleshmans were on friendly terms. Since the Fleshman and the Blankenbakers share a common ancestor (Anna Barbara Schön), it is not surprising that the Reiners, Fleshmans, and Blankenbakers were well acquainted with each other.
When the Reiner history is consulted, Daniel does have a sister Elizabeth. So Daniel Reiner and his wife Elizabeth Fleshman, and Jacob Blankenbaker and his wife Elizabeth Reiner, made a cozy group with common bonds of ancestry and age.
Finding the correct wife for Jacob was the key to correcting several other errors in the Germanna Record in the Utz, Weaver, and Blankenbaker families. That was a satisfying part. The frustrating part is that I have never learned the eventual fate of Jacob, Elizabeth, and their two children, Mary and Daniel (named for his uncle).
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.