John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1445

The immigrant John Thomas, Sr., (who had married Anna Maria Blankenbaker) had four children which we know, because Anna Maria's second husband, Michael Kaefer, left a very complete will which named his stepchildren as well as his own children.  The four children were:

John, Jr.;
Anna Magdalena;
Margaret; and
Michael.

Susanna (m. Jacob Holtzclaw),
Mary (m. Joseph Holtzclaw),
Mary Barbara (m. Jacob Blankenbaker), and
Elizabeth (m. John Railsback).

Let's go back to the four daughters of John Thomas, Jr.  Three of them are known to have married husbands of the Reformed faith, namely, two Holtzclaws and John Railsback.  The fourth son-in-law of John, Jr., was Jacob Blankenbaker, who was a Lutheran.  The first child in the family of Jacob and his wife, Mary Barbara Thomas, was born after 1750, so would have been expected all of Jacob's and Mary's children to be in the baptismal register of the Lutheran Church, but they are not.  In the second family of Jacob B., the children were baptized as Lutherans.  Why aren't Jacob's first children baptized as Lutherans?  They were raised in the Lutheran church (the only church game in town).

I consider it very likely that the first wife of John Thomas, Jr., was not a Lutheran.  Noting that three of her children married Reformed men, perhaps she was Reformed.  We know very little about her beyond her given name of Mary.  This hypothesis would help explain why the daughters married Reformed men.  It might even be extended of Mary Barbara Thomas, who married Jacob Blankenbaker.  Perhaps her upbringing as a Reformed person would have made it difficult for her to accept a Lutheran baptism for her children.

The family of John Thomas, Jr., certainly has Reformed connections.  The earliest potential connection would seem to be the marriage of John Holtzclaw to Catherine (Russell) Thomas, a widow.  Was this Thomas connected to the Robinson River Thomases?

B. C. Holtzclaw, in writing about the Thomas family, spent three pages in Germanna Record 6 agonizing over the structure and identity of the Thomas family.  As we see here, the Thomas family, which might be several distinct families, is tied to the Holtzclaw family in three ways.  Because the Thomas family may be regarded as a branch of the Blankenbaker family, I have spent some time puzzling over this connection.

I have mentioned these Thomas-Holtzclaw connections before in these notes, hoping to find someone who has studied the situation and can perhaps add some new information.  So far I have totally bombed out, but "Hope Springs Eternal".
(07 Aug 02)