One of the deed extracts that were recently circulated here (the first in a sequence of several, I believe) is very interesting, even though it fails to indicate the common thread among the people in the deed. The four names that were mentioned were Railsback, Holtzclaw (actually two different men), Zimmerman, and Blankenbaker (again two men), but the deed does not indicate in any way a factor they have in common. Descendants of these men all have the ancestress, Anna Barbara Schön. A family that also has a common thread, but is not mentioned, is the Thomas family.
Let’s see how this came about.
Anna Maria Blankenbaker married, first, John Thomas (Sr.), in Germany. She was the daughter of Anna Barbara Schön. Anna's and John's oldest child was John Thomas, Jr., who, with his unknown wife, had at least four daughters, and perhaps one son. (The only German John Thomas that we know in the Germanna community is the Junior, and I will call him simply John Thomas without the Junior designation.)
When John Thomas was getting well along in life, he cut some of his property up into five parcels. Three of these parcels were gifts to sons-in-law:
The other two parcels were a sale to John Railsback, who had married Elizabeth Thomas.
John Railsback had to pay something, because he got two parcels, with about twice the land of all of the other sons-in-law. I believe this came about because John Thomas was planning on dividing and giving land in five approximately equal parcels, but one heir did not want the land. So John Railsback paid for one of the five, and received one of the five as a gift (it does not say this in the deed).
I said earlier that the descendants of these men had Anna Barbara Schön for an ancestress. Then I told you that Joseph Holtzclaw married, secondly, Elizabeth Zimmerman. Even her children had Anna Barbara Schön for an ancestress, since Elizabeth Zimmerman’s mother was Ursula Blankenbaker, who had married John Zimmerman. So, no matter how you slice it, Anna Barbara’s genes are present in the descendants of these men. Note that Jacob Blankenbaker was married a second time to Hannah Weaver. Her mother was Barbara Käfer, and Hannah’s grandmother was Anna Maria Blankenbaker, who married John Thomas, Sr.
One other man was mentioned in the deed as a witness, and that was Christopher Blankenbaker. Need I say anything more about him? It is a prime case of keeping it "all in the family".
There is more to be said, but that will have to wait for the next note. While waiting, you can mull over why Jacob Holtzclaw and Joseph Holtzclaw were in the Robinson River Valley. Their home base is usually considered to be around Germantown in Fauquier County.
(26 Apr 01)
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.