John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1414

Having arrived back home, one question was whether anything had changed.  I looked into the Internet and checked out the Blankenbaker ancestry.  When I left, I thought that Johann Thomas Blankenbuehler in Neuenbürg had been the father of four children, namely, Hans Nicolas, Hans Balthasar, Hans Matthias, and Anna Maria.

The first place that I looked said that Johann Thomas Blankenbühler was the father of ten children.  Four of the proposed ten children I recognized.  However, even for these four, some of the facts are not correct.  Going through the ten quickly,

  1. John Nicholas B. was born in 1695 in Bavaria (according to the Web information).  Now, it is a documented fact that he was born in 1682, in the Lands of the Bishops of Speyer.  Later this became Baden, but it was never Bavaria.  It is said that he died in 1743 in Madison County, Virginia.  Of course, there was no Madison County in 1743.

  2. Mary or Margaret B. was born in 1690 in Alsace and was christened in Madison, Virginia (again, according to the Web information).  There never was such a person and the B’s never lived in Alsace, and she would have been 102 when she was christened in Madison Co., Virginia.  Maybe this is the one that married Michael Willheit.

  3. Matthias B.  The facts for him are close to being correct, though I do not know the source of his death date as 21 Apr 1763.

  4. Hans Nicolaus B.  This is the same name as number 1 above.  This time the facts given for this person are approximately correct.
    [ Note from SgtGeorge:  I suppose some researchers of German ancestors have just never learned that "Hans", "John", "Johan", "Johann", and "Johannes" are all equivalent given names.  Looks like a sad case of ignorance to me. ]

  5. Hans Balthasar Blankenbuehler.  The facts for him (on the Web) are essentially correct (b. 1683).  He died in Madison Co., VA.

  6. Ursely Ruop.  No further information given but she belongs in another family.
    [ Another Note from SgtGeorge:  How in blue hades did she end up as a child of Johann Thomas BLANKENBÜHLER?  This woman was the wife of Johannes BREYHEL (BROYLES), our BROYLES/BRILES 2nd Colony ancestor! ]

  7. Hans Balthasar Blankenbaker.  Compare to 5. above.  Only this one was born in 1688.

  8. Anna Maria Blankenbaker was born about 1700 (according to the data on the Web).  (1687 would be more correct.)

  9. Susannah Blankenbaker was born in 1696 in Alsace and she died before 1762 in Culpeper Co., VA.

  10. Anna Maria Blankenbuehler.

One is left wondering how such a pile of junk could be accumulated.  If one worked hard at doing it, it is still a mystery how it could be done.

One thought is that the source of this information is isolated and not communicating with the rest of the world.  If he/she were talking and working with others, he/she surely would be informed of his/her errors.  He/she should have been aware of his/her own inconsistencies though.  Or, is this a person who accumulates every superposition that was ever made and puts them all into one file?  Perhaps he/she is semi-automated and merges together every file that he/she can find.  Does he/she even look at the resulting product?  The moral is:

DO NOT COPY.    INVESTIGATE.

A lens replacement in my right eye tomorrow will take me out of commission for a few days.
(21 Jun 02)

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.