The question was asked whether I had discussed my House findings with Susie House Cooper. Yes, about fifteen years ago, I wrote a note on the subject and sent it to her. She objected, mostly because the note upset some of her work. In particular she objected to the three-wife concept; however, from the tone of her letters I could see that a further discussion on this subject would be fruitless and so we only communicated socially in the years since then.
My thoughts were based on the sponsorship pattern at the baptisms. If you had relatives in the neighborhood, preferably of the same age, they were to be used, as opposed to people who were merely friends. It is interesting that I discussed this concept with the Lutheran minister in Dietenhofen in Bavaria. He said the rules that I had deduced from the study of the German Lutheran Church in Culpeper Co., Virginia, were exactly the rules they to use today in his church. There were exceptions, because some people did not have any relatives in the area. For example, when Rev. Franck and his wife had a child baptized, Adam Wayland, Nicholas Crigler, Andrew Carpenter, and wife Barbara were sponsors. But this was solely because the Francks had no relatives in the area.
Three of the children in the Matthias House family did not have their baptisms recorded. George, John, and Susanna were confirmed, but they did not have any baptisms recorded in the Hebron records. The older children, born before the House family came to the Robinson River Valley, were baptized elsewhere. The mother of the three named ones above is uncertain as of this moment.
There is a comment or two that could be made about the appearance of the children in the church record. Adam House and Michael House were both confirmed on the 25th Sunday after Trinity in 1782. Both were listed as 18 years old. I thought this might be evidence that they were twins but Susie said they were not. These were the first House children to be confirmed. On the first Sunday after Trinity in 1785, Adam House took communion and an added note says that his wife was confirmed. In the list of communicants, he is the only Hauss. In the list of people being confirmed, there are Matthias Haus, Eva Hauss, Catharina Hauss nee Farnbach, and Margretha Hauss. The only one of these that would seem to be married to a Hauss is Catharina. Reading her last name is very difficult in the records. Eisenberg, who read the lists once, thought that he could read Farnbach. (Mielke and Blankenbaker were not so sure, but accepted Eisenberg's reading.) This is an awkward name in the sense that no Farnbachs lived in the neighborhood.
Dinah Holtzclaw married a Mr. House and had one daughter, Inga. She married a second time in 1783/4, John Van Meter (from Holtzclaw, "Nassau-Siegen"). If we attempt to place Mr. House in the Robinson River Valley Houses, it would be Adam, as all of the other older sons of Matthias House have definite marriage partners and lived. Perhaps this is not pertinent here but I would note that the timing is about correct and that Adam is not to be found in the church records after 1785. In fact he is not in the personal property tax lists for Culpeper Co. in 1787, though his father and Michael are. He either had died or moved away. (Comments are very much invited.) In short, I am not very satisfied with the story for Adam House.
(11 Jan 03)
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.