Continuing with Conrad and Rachel (Barlow) Künzle, two of their children were recorded in the first part of the baptismal register which was organized by family. When Jacob Franck came as minister in 1775, he started a chronological section entering each successive baptism after the previous. During this time Ambrosius Künzle was born and recorded there. Later there were six more children entered in the family section. Thus, someone who was looking hurriedly at the register might conclude that there were only eight children and miss Ambrosius.
The last six in the family section, with birth dates from 1780 to 1794, have no baptism dates. The time spans at least two ministers, an unknown man after Franck, and then William Carpenter, who started in 1787. If the six had been baptized reasonably close to their birth dates, there would have been differences of entries. For example, in 1780, sponsors were very standard, though by 1794 sponsors were optional. I venture that if the original records were examined, one would find that six were written in the same hand with the same ink.
I conclude (perhaps prematurely but at least tentatively) from this, that Conrad and Rachel Künzle were living in the Culpeper region, through Ambrosius who was born in 1778. I think that they moved away in the next two years, and the next six children were not baptized for some time. Eventually they came back to the Robinson River Valley after 1794 and brought their children. The six that had never been baptized were baptized at the same time (probably as a private baptism). Rev. Carpenter remembered the family section of the register which still had room, and used that space to enter the baptisms.
This register and other baptismal registers can often tell us a lot above and beyond what is explicitly written down. There is a tremendous amount of implied information which usually does not jump out at you. One must study to find it.
Whereas John Humphrey has or is compiling indices to baptisms with the pertinent details, this may lose some of the implied information. Though John makes it easy to tell if your infant is there, you will probably want to study some of the documents which are closer to the original. In other words, nothing beats the original documents. A good translation will convey much of the sense of the original document. George Smith did just this in his translation of the German Lutheran Church (later called Hebron) baptismal register; however, he made a few errors, and I gave one example in the last note. Getting back closer to the original is sometimes necessary. Many of these documents that are close to two hundred and fifty years old will not stand handling by the public. Therefore, we are dependent on microfilm copies.
If anyone can tell me something about Conrad Künzle, I would love to hear it. About all that I know is that he is the father of at least nine children, he married Rachel Barlow, and he lived in Culpeper County around the time of the Revolution, but apparently moved away around 1779.
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.