Descendants of the First Germanna Colony left, in the immediate generations, fewer baptismal records than were left by the Second Colony people at the German Lutheran Church in the Robinson River Valley. Though the First Colony had a church from the very beginning, which was most unusual, it appears that no records survived from this. Their German Reformed Church essentially came to an end with the death of Rev. Häger, though services with a reader, or an occasional itinerant minister, were held for at least another couple of decades.
The successor churches for the members of this German Reformed Church were mostly Baptist, where record keeping was not a high priority. It is unfortunate that not more church records exist, since they could go a long way toward helping to piece together the family structures.
The extant records are mostly private records. These are the records that one family keeps, and, generally, they pertain to only that family. Even of this type, not many have been retained. The most notable example is the record that John Hoffman, of the 1714 Colony, kept. This set exists only in a copy form, not as an original document. The published version was said to be a first generation copy.
He records the birth of his father, and the marriage of his father and mother. Then, he gives the death of his parents. He gives his own birth, baptism, and marriage to Anna Catharine Häger. His first born was the daughter Agnes, and the witness was the sister of his wife. Following in order, John Henry’s baptism was witnessed by Henry Häger, his wife’s father, then Anna Catharine’s baptism was witnessed by his wife’s mother, then John’s baptism was witnessed by John Fischbach. Next was a stillborn son, and the mother died on the same day, 9 Feb 1727.
Very soon thereafter, John Hoffman married Maria Sabina Folg (Volck would be a more correct spelling). Twelve children followed, but, before giving these, let us make a few observations. For the children of the first wife, only one witness was used. Presumably the baptism itself was done by Rev. Henry Häger, who was still living. Notice that relatives were favored as witnesses. Since John Hoffman had come as a bachelor, he did not have any relatives. His wife, though, had her sister, mother, and her father, and all of these served as witnesses.
About the time that his first wife died, John Hoffman moved to the Robinson River Valley, where his second wife was living. (Which came first is unclear.) As we will see in the next note, the pattern starts changing in the baptism of the twelve children by Maria Sabina, and this raises several questions. (Maria Sabina Volck was the daughter of Mrs. George Utz, though John Hoffman never identifies her as this.)
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.