Another family, besides the Casper family of the previous note, for which much more information has become available, is the Crecelius family. Earlier, the extent of the information published by the Germanna Foundation was one sentence. Clarice Jane Snyder, with several other researchers, has uncovered much information on this family which was reported in Beyond Germanna.
The name Crecelius doesn't even sound or look German. It originated in the sixteenth century when there was a movement to convert German names to a Latin form, especially by the educated class of teachers, doctors, and lawyers. The earliest individual in the Crecelius family for which it is possible to estimate dates closely is Dietrich "Theodore" Krekel, who lived about 1540 to 1628. He was the last Catholic instructor at the Institute of St. Serverus at Gemunden, in the Duchy of Nassau, before the Institute became Evangelical Lutheran during the Reformation period. It was the following two generations that adopted the spelling Crecelius. The name remains in Germany today with about 175 listings in the German telephone directory.
The line can be traced down to Otto Rudolph Crecelius, who was the clerk of the court at the village of Reichelshiem in 1764. In that year he applied for, and obtained, a certificate of the legitimate birth of his three children from the Mayor and Council of the village. Even the imperial commissioner, Herr J. L. W. von Trillitz, added his seal and signature.
Shortly thereafter he came to America with his family. For a while he was a teacher at the Frederick German Lutheran School in Frederick Co., Maryland. At the start of the American Revolution, he was in Culpeper Co., Virginia. In 1782 and 1784, he was in Rockingham Co. Later the family moved to that part of North Carolina which became eastern Tennessee. He died and is buried there.
In the Robinson River Valley in Virginia, Rudolph (as he commonly called himself), his wife, and his children have some appearances in the Hebron Church records. One son, Johannes Crecelius, was born there on 14 Oct 1777, with John and Mary (Wilhoit) Yager as sponsors. The daughter Elizabeth was confirmed in 1777, and the next two names in the list were Eva and Elizabeth Yager, daughters of John and Mary Yager. Probably the Yager family had befriended the Crecelius family, but perhaps it went a bit deeper than friendship. Elizabeth would have been reaching the age of marriage by the time that the family left the community.
One lesson from this is that it is possible to discover information even going back two hundred years before immigration. One objective here is to make others acquainted with the people in the community.
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.