We starting talking about Els (nee Unknown) Blankenbaker, but we have come around to asking some questions about the Thomas and the Holtzclaw families. We have discussed, much earlier, the fact that the oldest son of the 1714-immigrant Jacob Holtzclaw was John, who married a widow. Catherine Russell was her birth name, and she married a Thomas and had at least a son, Jacob. What made this stand out was that the two youngest sons of Jacob Holtzclaw went to the Robinson River Valley and married two Thomas girls, daughters of John Thomas, Jr. (At the same time, we must remember that the surname of their mother, the second wife of Jacob Holtzclaw, the immigrant, is unknown. Maybe she came from the Robinson River community.)
I have always felt that the Thomas husband of Catherine Russell was related to the Robinson River Thomases. Then, I believed that John Thomas and his siblings probably visited Jacob Thomas to see how their relative was doing. In the process they became acquainted with the Germantown community, and, likewise, the Germantown community became acquainted with the Robinson River Thomases.
The maiden name of John Thomas’ (first) wife is unknown. Did he meet someone from the Germantown community and marry her? There is a little circumstantial evidence that says this could be the case. The family of John Thomas, Jr., has a minimum number of appearances at the Lutheran church. Just to cite one example, Jacob Blankenbaker married Mary Barbara Thomas, the daughter of John Thomas, Jr. Their first child was born after 1750, the starting date for recording births at Hebron. But none of the children are in the birth records there. And Mary Barbara Thomas Blankenbaker has no appearances there herself. Of the four known children of John Thomas, Jr., three of them married Reformed men (two Holtzclaws and one Railsback), and one married Jacob Blankenbaker. This suggests that John Thomas, Jr., might have married a Reformed woman, presumably from Germantown.
One possibility is that Els Blankenbaker came from the Germantown community. A little bit of a suggestion of this is, while she frequented the Lutheran church, she tended to sit in the back of the church, and to sit with people who had some near history with the Reformed religion. But she did take communion, see later comments.
Another possibility is that Els was a Thomas, from a branch of the family of which we have no knowledge. Possibly she was related to the Thomas who married Catherine Russell.
I believe that if I were a descendant of Els and wanted to learn more about her, I would try to learn more about the Thomas family in Germany, who seemed to have some presence in the Neuenbürg church. And also, as a descendant of Els, or as a descendant of John Thomas, Jr., I would study the Germantown community for clues. Note that spelling E-L-S is pronounced approximately as "Ales".
I would appreciate it if someone who knew the Lutheran church practices in the eighteenth century would comment on the serving of Communion to non-Lutherans. I believe, but I am not sure, that they were not inclined to do this.
(31 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.