No responses came in on the last Note pertaining to possible reasons that John and Mary Yager, whom I take to be Blind John and his wife Mary Willheit, would be associated with John Rodeheifer and his wife Mary as a baptismal sponsors for a child of the Rodeheifers. Over in the Valley, the Rodeheifers seem to be associated with Woodstock Adam Yager and his son John Yager. I have no answer, but the coincidence strikes me as notable.
There is another name that I associate with the Valley that pops up in the Germanna area. This is the name Böhme, or Boehme, or Bohm, which became the name Beemon in the Germanna area. Not only do I think of this as a Valley name but I think of it as a Mennonite or Brethren name, but perhaps I error there.
Darryl Diemer compiled a book of (English) Smiths who lived on the east side of the Blue Ridge, where many of them lived in the Germanna area and married Germanna people, including some Yagers.
One baptismal record at Hebron has John Yager as a sponsor for Anthony Smith and his wife Catherine. Diemer could find no Anthony Smith in the English Smiths and I could not find an Anthony in the German Smiths. Diemer concluded that Anthony was an inability to understand the name Downing. Downing Smith is said, by the Garrs, to have married Catherine Boehme..
We do know that John Yager was a sponsor for Daniel Boehme and his wife Nancy on several occasions. I have interpreted Nancy as a Chelf, the daughter of Philip Chelf, who married, as his second wife, Barbara Yager, the sister of John Yager. If this were true, there would be a certain logic to the choice of John Yager, as Nancy would be a step-niece of John.
This still gives us no information about where the Boehme family came from, or even when, but it seems to be shortly before the Revolution that they appear in the Germanna area. Since Barbara Yager married a Philip Chelf, this raises another question. Where did the Chelfs come from?
One reason that I mention these people is the hope that Yager researchers in studying the branches might be able to shed some light on the Boehme, Chelf (Tself, Jelf), and Rodeheifer families. One would want also to be alert to early interactions between the English Smith family and the Yagers.
Nearly all of these unusual cases revolve around John Yager, who if I have identified him correctly is Blind John, a stalwart at the Hebron church. It may be that he would serve as a sponsor for all of the strays that wandered in without bringing any relatives to serve as sponsors at baptisms.
(25 Jul 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.