At one time I was led to study two John Blankenbakers who lived in Culpeper Co., VA, and who were of a similar age. I was concerned whether the two had been mixed up or confused with each other. There were enough mistakes in the Germanna Records that one was alerted to the possibility that the two Johns had been confused. I did the study by examining the baptisms, especially the selection of sponsors, at the German Lutheran Church.
The most significant thing to emerge from the study was the role played by Henry Wayman. The selection of the baptismal sponsors did not follow the conventional pattern, if I used the standard histories. To make sense of their roles of the players, it was necessary to invoke another marriage for Henry Wayman. Besides the usual marriage cited for him, it was necessary to postulate that he had married an unsuspected daughter, or stepdaughter, of Zacharias Blankenbaker. It could have been a stepdaughter, for Zacharias did marry a widow who had at least one child.
After this tentative conclusion, based on the baptisms, other evidence was sought. The will of Zacharias (John Nicholas) Blankenbaker was witnessed by Aaron Garr, Henry Wayman, and Aaron Wayman, who was the son of Henry. The appearance of Henry was not startling, but in the light of the decision that he had been a son-in-law of Zacharias at one time, it assumed more significance. Especially telling was the appearance of Aaron Wayman, who was about 21. Zacharias was about 80 and it is not typical for 80 year-old men to select 21 year boys as a witness, unless they have good reasons for trusting the youth. In light of the decision that I had reached that Henry had been a son-in-law of Zacharias, it was not so unusual to select a grandson.
Henry is said, in the common histories, to have married Magdalena, the daughter of John Blankenbaker. John in his will refers to his "daughter Magdalena now married to Henry Wayman". I interpret the word "now" as meaning that the marriage of Henry or Magdalena had not always been to the other one. Also, the first marriage of Henry had been some sixteen years earlier, so to refer to a marriage of this duration as "now" would be strange.
A point that made the analysis more confusing was that the first wife's name was Mary Magdalena and she appears in the records under all combinations of these names. Since John Blankenbaker's daughter was also a Magdalena, it made it difficult to distinguish the two wives.
Based mostly on the baptisms, I published a note in which I said that Henry Wayman was married twice. The first wife was an undetected daughter, or stepdaughter, of Zacharias Blankenbaker. I could not tell immediately which of these it might be. One of the things that the baptismal records told me was that a known stepdaughter of Zacharias was in every way an accepted member of the family.
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.