John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1879

I reported on another Ortssippenbuch in Beyond Germanna on page 825.  This was for the two combined villages of Oberöwisheim and Neuenbürg, which had been put together because the Lutheran church in Oberöwisheim also served the Lutherans in Neuenbürg.  This was really an exciting book for me because of the great number of possible Germanna names in it which included the following:

Blanckenbühler, Bender, Blanck, Christler, Debelt/Debold/Debolt, Diehl, Finck, Fischer, Fleischmann, Gerhard, Hepp, Hirsch, Jager, Kafer, Kappeler, Kiefer, Klar, Krieger, Lang, Lederer, Lepp/Lipp, Mack, Maier/Mayer/Meier/Meyer, Motz, Ostreicher, Rauch, Rausch, Reiser, Rücker, Sauter, Schad, Schaible/Schaiblin/Scheiblin, Schluchter, Schneider, Schon, Schuck, Sieber, Silber, Thom/Thomas, Uhl, Vogt/Voigt, Weidmann, Weingard, and Zimmerman.

I was able to show, using this book as the source, that a published history of Mrs. George Schaible, of the 1717 immigrants to Virginia, was incorrect.  The Ortssippenbuch identifies her correctly as having the maiden name of Maria Eleanora Ockert, who had been born in Kleingartach on the 29th of June in 1670.  The book also confirmed what was known about other Germanna immigrants from the Oberöwisheim-Neuenbürg locality.

One of the exciting things is to feel that your researches might be directed to a particular area as you scan the names present in the community.  Then you would want to start scanning the church books in that general vicinity.

The Ortssippenbuch for Oberöwisheim-Neuenbürg has a few variations from the format that I discussed for Diefenbach.  But after you have learned the format for one Ortssippenbuch, it is not difficult to switch to another book as they are so similar.

Back in Diefenbach, the Ortssippenbuch for that village shows these names:

Baumgärtner, Beck, Böhm, Fin(c)k, Fischer, Kappler/Keppler, Kercher, Kerler, Kienzle, Klar, Koch, Krieger, Lang, Lederer, Mack, Maier, Mauch, Öhler/Oehler, Preiss, Reiner, Sauder/Saut(t)er, Scheible, Schlatter, Schmidt, Silber, Späth, Thomae, Uhl, Vogt/Voigt, Weber, Wieland, Ziegler, Zimmermann.

None of these people have been proven yet to have emigrated to the Robinson River Valley.

I included the Kerler name because it occurred once when Ernst Jacob Kerler, a shoemaker, who had married Anna Maria, had their child Ernst Gottlieb baptized in Diefenbach in 1724.  The child died one year later so this was a second appearance.  With so few mentions, had the name Kerler been misunderstood and written mistakenly?  Was it Perler or Berler?
(03 May 04)