At the end of February, the March issue of Beyond Germanna was mailed to subscribers. The lead article was by Heinz Prinz, a resident of Cologne (Köln) and a Trustee of the Germanna Foundation. Mr. Prinz discussed the state of the Siegerland at the time of the first Germanna emigration. Many people might be surprised to know that the economic and political conditions there were not the best then. Unemployment was severe. Prince William Hyazinth had beheaded one of his subjects without a trial. (The man who was beheaded was Friedrich Flender, an ancestor of Ernst Flender who made the Germanna Foundation a reality.)
The Matthias House family has several records in the Hebron Church Registers. Using these, I came up with the conclusion that Matthias House, the patriarch of the family, was married three times. The second, and previously unsuspected, wife was Margaret Zimmerman, who was the mother of at least two of his children.
One of the families involved in the analysis of the House family was that of Joseph Holtzclaw and his wife Elizabeth Zimmerman. They too have several records in the church books. They, with some civil records, were used for a discussion of the family. (Joseph Holtzclaw was one of the two sons of the 1714 immigrant, Jacob Holtzclaw, who moved down to the Robinson River Valley.)
Andreas Mielke translated two of the documents that Zollickoffer carried with him in his fund raising efforts in Europe. Though the appeal was largely motivated by the Reformed Germanna people, Zollickoffer was able to get a recommendation from a Lutheran pastor in London for his solicitations.
For a short period of time about 1781, the Lutheran church in the Robinson River Valley (now called Hebron) had a preacher by the name of J. Michael Schmidt. I looked for evidence that this might have been the J. Michael Schmidt that had lived in the Valley since 1725. I concluded that it was the same man. Not everyone agrees with me but you can decide after reading the evidence.
Some House researchers believe that Matthias House married first Margretha Jäckler. This was based on a marriage record in Philadelphia. I looked for the record and concluded that, though it does exist, the time element is not correct. I do not believe there is any evidence now known as to his first wife’s maiden name.
Some photographs of Siegen were included and another page was devoted to the villages of the George Utz family in Bavaria. Many members of the family still live there today.
(20 Mar 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.