John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 703

This note discusses one of the families who moved, in the first half of the nineteenth century, from Virginia to Missouri.  Jonas Finks Blankenbaker received two of his names from his ancestors.  His grandmother was Christina Finks Blankenbaker, who had married Christopher Blankenbaker.  Jonas married Mary Smith, of the English Smiths, who had Germanna blood also.  They married, 8 May 1827, in Madison County, Virginia, and they lived there for a while.  He was in the 1830 census from there, but by 1840 he was in Howard County, Missouri.

In the 1840 census, there were three girls born 1830 to 1835, and one girl born 1835 to 1840.  None of these four appear again, and I have wondered if they were not from another family.  Why they would be living with the Jonas Blankenbaker family is not clear.  Their birth years seem to be in conflict with the children of Jonas and Mary so they were probably outsiders.  They could have been simply children of a neighboring family where the mother had died and the father had not remarried.

Arthur Leslie Keith in the "Broyles Family" gives the children in this family as:

  1. Franklyn Finks, b. ca 1829,
  2. Catherine Diane, b. ca 1831,
  3. Alice Palmyra, b. 20 Sep 1834,
  4. Andrew Smith, b. ca 1835,
  5. Virginia Ellen (Jennie), b. 9 Apr 1836,
  6. Louisa T., b. 3 Jun 1839, d. 28 Aug 1851,
  7. Martha E., b. 22 Jun 1840, d. 20 Sep 1851,
  8. Matilda Frances, b. ca 1843, and
  9. Jonas Nelson, b. 11 Dec 1848, d. 14 Aug 1851,

What this sad story does not tell is that Jonas Finks Blankenbaker, the father, died 26 Aug 1851.  The mother, Mary Smith Blankenbaker, had lost her husband and three children in the period from 14 August 1851 to 20 Sep 1851 (about five weeks).

Mary, herself, was in the 1880 census at the age of 70, and head of household (she apparently never remarried).  In the same county and year, Frank, 51, was also the head of a household.  There was also Jeff, 47, in the same county (Howard) in 1880 who was head of a household.  It would appear that he might have been of this family also.

Life was not always easy.  I am sure there were people back in Virginia who were saying, "I told you so.  They should never have moved."  The epidemics occurred everywhere and were not to be particularly identified with any area or section but they must have led to discussions about the relative merits of one area or another.

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.