Sgt. George forwarded a request from a person who was confused about the Carpenters and Zimmermans. Since others might also be confused, I thought that I would reply to the list here.
The questioner states that there were two sets of Carpenters/Zimmermans. This is correct. The Zimmerman set was headed by Christopher Zimmerman who lived in the Mt. Pony area. He was a cooper from Sulzfeld in Germany who came in 1717. (A neighbor of his was another cooper, Frederick Kabler who also came from Sulzfeld.) Christopher Zimmerman had several children, but one of the children, John, lived in the Robinson River Valley. This John married Ursula Blankenbaker. None of these Zimmermans ever used the name Carpenter, as far as we know.
The Carpenter set was headed by the brothers William and John, who came to Virginia in 1720. They never appear in the civil records as Zimmermans, as they seem to have converted to the use of Carpenter quite early. At the church, they were called Zimmermans SOMETIMES. (The grandson, Rev. William Carpenter was referred to as Zimmerman in records of the Synod until about 1800.)
The original John Carpenter married Barbara Kerker. He had children Michael, John, William, and Andrew. The original William had no children, so all of the Carpenters came down from the John who married Barbara Kerker.
In the books, "'Hebron' Communion Lists" and "'Hebron' Baptismal Register", Andreas Mielke and I have identified all of the Carpenters and Zimmermans by the name they chose to use in the civil records. [For more information about these books, email me privately at JVBlankenbaker@gmail.com .] An earlier book, "Hebron Church Register", failed to distinguish the individuals by whether they were in the Zimmerman or Carpenter groups. This has led many people to be confused by the duplication of the Zimmerman name.
The assumption that the Carpenters originally had the German name of Zimmerman is supported by the use of the Zimmerman name at the church. Otherwise, we have no proof that their name was originally Zimmermann. We also have no suggestion that the Zimmermans and Carpenters were related.
(11 Feb 04)
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.