From some of the email that I have seen, I judge there is confusion about the material that has been published about the Germanna Colonies. I will ignore entirely the individual family histories.
The Germanna Foundation has published (in print) many Germanna Records. Some of these are general and some pertain to specific families. Usually they do not include more than three or four generations. If you visit the web page www.germanna.org and go to the publications page, you will see the entire list of the publications. In addition they publish a newsletter which is sent to members.
In 1989, I started the Beyond Germanna newsletter which was continued for fifteen years. Altogether, 917 large-sized pages were issued. This is described on the web site www.germanna.com . Notice the difference between dot org, dot com, and dot net. (These newsletters are the material that I have put onto a CD and which is being field tested now.)
About 1990, Lineages, Inc. starting issuing the Before Germanna booklets. These represent years of research into the German church records. Some of the families had been researched by individuals before this time so the research is not all new. Lineages did make a systematic effort to publish the results in a series of 12 booklets.
Internet list services were started as a volunteer effort by a small group of people. One list was this Germanna Colonies List. In order to build the appeal of the list which would make it more useful, I started writing daily notes in January of 1997. This is number 1,846 in that series.
George Durman set up an Internet web page for Germanna History. Among the many things on this web site was the collected set of Notes . (It taxes my memory less if I go first to www.germanna.com and then click on the link to George's Germanna History.)
These Notes were popular enough that people were asking for the back issues. Gene Wagner started issuing CDs which had all of the Notes up to the time of issue and he will update your CD. (Gene's web site is www.germanna.net .) Gene also started putting the Notes on the same web site.
A little over a year ago, I issued a Photographic Essay of the Germanna Villages on a CD.
I am now evaluating a CD version of the printed issues of Beyond Germanna .
I have also participated in the print publication of "Hebron" Communion Lists and "Hebron" Baptismal Register .
Yes, there are many similar names but it is important to identify each individual one.
(04 Mar 04)
(Note from webmaster of this site on the various "Germanna" websites:
www.germanna.ORG = The Official "Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia" website;
www.germanna.COM = John Blankenbaker's Germanna website (John is writer of these Notes);
www.germanna.NET = Gene Wagner's Germanna website.)
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.