Recently, I have examined some coincidences where names are "paired" in different localities. The Thomas family certainly seems to have it share of pairings, which may extend from Germany to what is now western Pennsylvania.
Members of several families moved from Culpeper County, Virginia, to what was thought then to be northern Augusta County, VA, but is now southwestern Pennsylvania. Some of the people who moved include the Hupps, who may have been about the first from Culpeper County. The Thomas family was not far behind them. George Bumgarner was early. A member of the Crisler family went, but he was not so early. A member of the Smith family, Susanna, moved up. Were the Debolts ever in Culpeper County?
This whole migration to southwest Pennsylvania has been under-emphasized in the Germanna histories.
Before leaving the Thomas family, I want to emphasize a connection to another family which I feel needs more explanation. That is the Thomas and Holtzclaw interactions. The eldest son of the immigrant, Hans Jacob Holzklau, was John. He married a widow, Catherine (Russell) Thomas, who had a Thomas son. The two youngest sons of Jacob, namely another Jacob and Joseph, married two Thomas girls from the Robinson River Valley. Now the Robinson River was not the home ground of the two Holtzclaw men. This was not a case of marrying the girls on the next farm. This is like marrying someone who was living twenty-five miles away, or whatever the distance is from Germantown to the Robinson River Valley. How did they become acquainted?
The mother of the two youngest Holtzclaw sons (perhaps Harmon also) was a second wife. Her given name was Catherine and her maiden name is unknown. Perhaps she had come from the Robinson River community and provided the link between the Holtzclaw and Thomas family.
Or was the Catherine Russell Thomas the link? Was her Thomas son a relative of the Thomas families in the Robinson valley? If this had been the case, perhaps the Thomas family members from the Robinson area paid periodic visits to Germantown to visit their relative(s). This scenario seems to require that the John Thomas who came (probably in 1717) had a relative who came with him.
There is another connection in that it is believed that Henry Holtzclaw, second son in the family, married Nancy Harden. Now some members of the Harden family went to southwest Pennsylvania. Were the Thomases and the Hardens acquainted, and did the actions of one influence the other?
We all know what Winston Churchill said. Can someone quote it?
(01 Aug 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.