Nancy House Perry asks a question about Adam House and wife Catharine in the Shenandoah Valley. In particular, she asks if this could be the Adam House in the family of the Robinson River Valley Matthais House family. I think the answer is that it well could be.
Adam House himself was confirmed at the German Lutheran Church in 1782, at age 18. In 1785, he is a communicant with this added notation after his name, " wife confirmed ". In the list of people being confirmed that Sunday, there are these House family members, all of them believed to be siblings of Adam:
There is one more House, namely Catherine (age 18), whose maiden name is given almost illegibly. It is about eight letters long and the last part does seem to be " bach ". It also seems that the initial letter is " F ". Between these parts, it is a guess. Eisenberg thought it was, in total, Farnbach . Andreas Mielke and I looked at in the microfilm, and in the original, and we could not say anything with certainty. George M. Smith took the easy way out and gave it as ?, for which he may deserve an "A" for honesty. I tried to see if the name could be read as Fischbach, as being the only name I knew that would fit what we could approximately see. It did not look like Fischbach to me.
Probably, the marriage of Adam and Catherine took place shortly before her confirmation when she was 18. Nancy House Perry gave children as born in 1786, 1788, 1794, and on to 1809. These would certainly be consistent with the Adam and Catherine that I have been describing.
There is another point worth mentioning. After 1785, Adam House disappears from the Robinson River Valley. Though his father and his younger brother Michael are in the 1787 Private Property Tax List for (old) Culpeper County, Adam is not present. Adam never appears in the Communion Lists after the case in 1785 above. Nor is this Adam ever present in the Baptismal Records as a parent or as a sponsor where the family is moderately active.
I would say that the appearance in the Shenandoah Valley of an Adam House with wife Catherine, having children starting in 1786 and running to 1809 would be very consistent with the Adam House and Catherine who are in the 1785 Communion List at the German Lutheran Church (Hebron) in the Robinson River Valley. I feel terrible that the name of Catherine could not be read with some certainty.
(06 Aug 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.