John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1626

(Hank Jones' Rules for Conducting Genealogy Research are continued from Note Nr. 1625, Page 65 .)

Hank Jones' 3rd Rule. Use Original Sources.

To many of you, this will sound like preaching to the choir.  You are thoroughly familiar with the principle and follow it.  Unfortunately, there are many who don't know what an original source is.  This is particularly true today, when so much is available on the Internet.  It looks like the information is laid out for us and all we need do is to copy it.

Finding the original sources is sometimes a problem.  Some of them are buried quite deep and in the remotest places.  Hank cites the Rotterdam Embarkation Lists in Rotterdam for 1709 , and the London Census of Palatines in 1709 .  This is even before the Germans got to New York.  Then in New York there are the Hunter Subsistence Lists, of 1710 to 1712 , and The West Camp Census of 1710/11 , and the Simmendinger Register .  In addition to these are the Church Records.  So there is a whole series of records to be compared.

One of my favorite examples, because I did the work with some help from James Brown, is the investigation into the story of the ship and/or Captain that the Second Germanna Colony used in coming to America.  Everyone was saying that the group came with Capt. Scott.  When asked where they got the information, they might have said it was in the head right applications of a few of the people.  They are correct so far; that is the only place in an original record that Capt. Scott is mentioned.  When you look at these records though, they say " in Capt. Scott " which is a strange way of referring to the Captain of a ship.

If you search through the original records of the time, there is no Capt. Scott as a man.  There is a ship called the Scott .  It would seem that the clerk misunderstood the Germans and got confused as to whether the Scott was the ship or the man.  It seems more probable that the Scott was the ship than the man.

It was rather easy to check the record in the Spotsylvania Court House pertaining to the Germans' arrival.  Having read it, it would be hard to maintain that the Germans came with Capt. Scott (the man).  Don't feel too badly; as some big names in the field made the initial mistake and others repeated it.

Here on the List, I just recently asked how Zacharias Blankenbaker referred to Elizabeth in his will.  A. L. Keith said he called her "my daughter".  That is not what Zacharias said.  He said Elizabeth was "...the daughter of my wife."  Technically, both statements could be true.  If you search around a bit though, you could find evidence that Elizabeth was not his daughter.

Don't trust what people say.  Try to see what the original records say.
(Hank Jones' Rules are continued in the next Note, Nr. 1627.)
(24 Mar 03)