A correspondent writes that he is descendant of Michael Huffman, the son of the 1714 John Huffman. The correspondent writes that he believes Michael had married Mary Fleischmann (Fleshman). It is true that many charts show this, often with a question mark after the name of Fleshman. It is extremely doubtful that Michael married Mary Fleshman.
We know when Michael was born, since his father recorded the information in his family Bible. Michael was born in 1732, the second son (and child) in John Huffman’s second family.
Cyriacus Fleshman was the father of Peter Fleshman and Mary Fleshman, both born in Germany, in the years 1704 and 1708, respectively. The mother, Anna Barbara Schöne, was born in 1664, so she was 44 when Peter was born. It is unlikely there were any children after 1708. This Mary Fleshman is too old to have married Michael Huffman.
Peter’s children seem to be well defined, as John, Barbara, Robert, Catherine, Elizabeth, and Peter, who, it is estimated, were born about 1731, 1730's, 1735, 1737, 1739, and 1740 respectively. There was no Mary among these children. These six seem well documented, especially at the German Lutheran Church.
My correspondent adds that when Michael and Mary Huffman had Sarah baptized, the sponsors were Ephraim and Elizabeth Fleischman. I have looked over the baptismal records (see “Hebron” Baptismal Register by me), and there is no Michael Huffman in the baptismal register, nor is there a Sarah Huffman there. There is an Ephraim Fleshman there, notably as a sponsor for the child Elias of Michael Fleischmann and his wife, Maria (Blankenbaker). In addition to Ephraim being a sponsor, his unmarried sister, Elisabetha Fleischmann, was also a sponsor.
There is a Saranna Huffman, who was baptized in 1777, but her parents are Dietrich Huffman and his wife Jemima (Barlow).
My conclusion is that the wife of Michael Huffman was not Mary Fleshman.
There is quite a bit of information about the Fleshmans and the Huffmans in
Beyond Germanna
, which is very easily accessible via the CD containing the 917 pages of Beyond Germanna.
(13 May 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.