John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1625

(Hank Jones' Rules continued from preceding Note, Nr. 1624.)
(From " More Palatine Families ", by Hank Jones)

Hank Jones' 2nd Rule. Study the Sponsors.

Now the sponsors can be considered a special type of neighbor, so this rule is emphasizing the first rule, which was Study the Neighbors (i.e., the Associations).

The rule is important because the sponsors generally come from a small set of people, namely, relatives of the parents of the child to be baptized or christened.  The rule that I had formulated once was the sponsors were most likely to be siblings of the parents or cousins of the parents.  Not only would brothers and sisters and cousins be likely, but the ones that were related by married were as apt to be chosen.  A. L. Keith put it this way, "One coming into the family by marriage was quite promptly placed on the same basis as those related by blood."

Generally, the sponsors would be the same age as the parents.  There are a few instances where parents, or children of the parents, are used as sponsors but these cases are few in number.  I had deduced these rules based on the observed patterns at the German Lutheran church in the Robinson River Valley.  When I discussed these rules with the Lutheran pastor in the Dietenhofen Lutheran church in Germany, he said they were the same rules he liked to encourage the parents there to use today.  The rationale is that such closely-related sponsors will be more responsible for the spiritual welfare of the child if something should happen to the parents.

There is such a gold mine of information in studying the sponsors.  I am currently engaged in a project to identify the relationship between the parents and the sponsors for all of the baptisms at the "Hebron" Lutheran church.  I have done enough to know that the sponsors generally do follow the rules that I outlined above.  My biggest problem is that I do not know much about some of the families who are mentioned there.  For example, there is one mention of a Trumbo there.  Someone was able to assist me there.  (I may be asking here for information about some other people.)

Here is a case that I have wondered about for some time.  Matthew Smith came to church in 1717 with a wife Catherine.  In Virginia, a son Matthew, Jr., was born who married Mary ____.  When I look at the baptisms of the children of George Cook, I see Matthew and Mary Smith as sponsors on three occasions and they have no obvious relationship to George or his wife Maria Sara Reiner.  The Reiner family is well known from the Schwaigern records and Matthew Smith and wife Mary are not to be found in the Reiner history.  So it suggests we should concentrate on the Cook relationship.  In the civil records, there is nothing there which would confirm or deny the existence of another Cook, namely Mary.

Probably, Mary Smith should be assigned as a sister to George Cook.  That would account for Mary being chosen once as a sponsor and Matthew being chosen twice.
(Hank Jones' Rules are continued in the next Note, Nr. 1626, Page 66 .)
(22 Mar 03)