Recently, Harmon Rector (son of Hans Jacob Richter) was mentioned, and a question was raised as to who his wife was. I believe the correct answer is that no one knows . Even her given name is a mystery. Harmon is thought to have had five children, three sons and two daughters. If I remember correctly, John is the only child mentioned by name in his will. He went on to say "my three sons", which led to a question of interpretation. Did the "three sons" refer to people other than John, or did it refer to the total number of sons? It was under the possibility that there were four sons, that some people thought that Uriah might have fit in here. The current thinking is that there were only three sons in total, namely:
- John (married Mary ___),
- Harmon (married Mary, who probably was a Nelson), and
- Henry (married Elizabeth McPherson).
Of the four sons of Hans Jacob Richter, Henry married Anne Robinson, not Anne Spencer. Anne Robinson was the daughter of Catherine Taylor Robinson, who married, as her second husband, John Rector, the eldest son of Hans Jacob Richter. Because one of the children of Henry was named Spencer, it had been an erroneous guess that Henry might have married Anne Spencer.
The youngest son of Hans Jacob Richter, Jacob, married Mary Hitt.
At the Germanna Reunion this past July I talked to someone who was not aware that John Rector, the oldest son of Hans Jacob Richter, was married twice, and very probably his second wife was the mother of most, perhaps with only one exception, of his children. This second wife was Catherine Taylor Robinson, a young widow who had a few Robinson children. One of these was the Anne who married Henry Rector above.
The mother of Henry, Daniel, and Jacob, children of John Rector, is not known with certainly, but most researchers are betting that Catherine Taylor was the mother. After these three sons, most researchers say the next child is Charles, who would seem clearly to be Catherine Taylor's son, named after her father Charles Taylor. The implication from the court case, which established that Catherine Taylor Robinson was the second wife, is that she married John Rector quite early, very probably not long after the eldest child of John, another John, was born. This child had, as a mother, Anna Catherine Fishback. Between John, the eldest child, and Charles born in 1742, the mother is uncertain.
John Gott and John Alcock have cleared up many questions concerting this family in recent years. It is frightening to consider how unreliable many family histories must be. Until John Gott found the court case in the loose papers, John Rector was considered to have had only one wife. How many other families have a similar situation but do not have a court case which would make things clear?
(06 Aug 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.