Earlier, I have reported here on my readings of the Gemmingen baptismal register. At the same time as I was doing this, Andreas Mielke and Elke Hall were transcribing the note in the Register of Deceased Persons that was made about July 12 of 1717 for Gemmingen. This described the persons who left on that date. Previously, translation of these words had been published but it had seemed to me that the translation did not read well. So, I urged these two experts to give us the benefit of their understanding. Of the six families who left on 12 July, we know four of them very well in Virginia. They were the Klaar (Clore), Weber (Weaver) and the two Schmidt (Smith) families. A fifth family arrived in Virginia (we believe) but nothing further is known of them. This was the MichlEklh family who appear only on the head rights list of Alexander Spotswood. This may mean one of several things.
Ship captains demanded that surviving family members pay for the passage of those who died during the crossing. In the same way, Spotswood may have been using the head right of Michael MichlEkhr without regard to whether he was still living or not. We should be hesitant to say that he arrived. A second reason he may have dropped out of sight in Virginia is that he may have died early in Virginia. In this case, members of his family might be present in Virginia. A third reason he may have faded in Virginia is that he literally disappeared from Virginia. He may have been determined to go to Pennsylvania and he, and the family, may have just set out on foot one night for Pennsylvania.
The status of Lorentz Bekh (Beck) is not certain. He also, with his family, set out on July 12.
Two other families left Gemmingen in 1717, but they left earlier than the ones above. As a consequence they got to London in time to catch a ship going to Pennsylvania. Hank Jones believes that he has detected both men there. One family was Niclas Hemmler, his wife, and three children. The other man was Heinrich Behr who had a family in Gemmingen, but he ran out on them and left them stranded. Jones thinks that he had found this man in Pennsylvania where it appears he remarried and started another family. According the Gemmingen church book, he left because of many debts, not necessarily because he wanted to escape his family.
The statement in the church book has the signature of Christian Weber, the church Sexton. It would appear he was responsible for writing it. He attributes the reason that the people left was "to earn their piece of bread better there than here through the hard work of cultivating the wilderness."
(13 Nov 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.