John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1630

(Hank Jones' Rules for Conducting Genealogy Research are continued from Note Nr. 1629 .)

Hank Jones' 7th Rule. Use Family Traditions as Guides, Never Gospel.

How often have you encountered beginning genealogists who say, "We have always been told that . . . ."  They then proceed to tell you a story which you can recognize immediately as having little chance of being correct.  We have a few in the Germanna community, though by now most of them are being weeded out by the knowledgeable people.  The one that comes to mind most quickly is Baron Ludwig Fischer.  And to go with his title, he would have owned the land of Hanover, besides his castle on the Rhine River.

Hank estimates that 70 to 80 percent of the Palatine German families that he has investigated in New York have a tradition that they are of Dutch and not German origin.  That is a rather common belief for descendants of most Eighteenth Century Germans.

Another popular belief is that there is Indian sap in the tree.  Some of these stories may be correct but I doubt that it occurs to the extent that it is claimed.

Another popular claim is that three brothers came to America.  Some of these are true as with Balthasar, Matthias, and Nicolaus Blankenbaker.  So far, so good, but the story failed completely to convey the full sense of the immigration.  The story did not mention that their sister, their mother, their step-father, assorted half-siblings, and a small collection of children also came at the same time.  In addition there were associated people, probably more remote relatives.

Another fallacy is that people often fall into the trap of believing that their name was spelled in a particular way.  "We couldn't be related to them.  They spell their name Kindig and we spell it Kendig."

The claim to have come from a noble family, or to be related to royalty, is a very popular theme.  As Hank has said, he has investigated thousands of German families and he has yet to find one for which this was a documented fact.  Are we related to royalty?  Yes, probably every one of us is related to some degree.  There would be very few of us who could not claim a King or Queen for an ancestor if the facts were known.

Hank summarizes his views as, "So family traditions, so often warped, changed, and even fabricated over the years, should be used as guides to point us in directions for searching, but never as unimpeachable truth !"  If it is older than one hundred years, probably it has been retold too many times to remain faithful to the truth.  At the core though, it may retain elements of the truth.
(Hank Jones' Rules are continued in the next Note, Nr. 1631.)
(28 Mar 03)