John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes
Note 2051
At the half-century marks, I devote the Note to the larger view. Perhaps, a good thing to do is to review the name Germanna itself. During the time that Alexander Spotswood was Lt. Governor of Virginia, which was from 1710 to 1722, he named several geographical features in Virginia after Queen Anne, the ruling monarch in the first part of his tenure. The southern fork of the Rappahannock River was renamed the Rapidanne (Rapid+Anne) River which became, with usage, the Rapidan River. Along the Rapidan River he built Fort Germanna where the name is a combination of German plus the queen's name (Germ+Anna). (Using the German spelling of
Anna
sounds better than the English spelling of
Anne
.) Shortly after Fort Germanna was built, Christanna (Christ+Anna) in the south of Virginia was built. This was another fort of more substance than Germanna. Also, a couple of other streams were named with an Anne or Anna in the name.
Our interest in all of these names centers on Germanna because of the Germans that were installed in this fort for about four and a half year. After this time, the Germans moved away, the Fort was torn down, and Spotswood built his home. About twelve families lived in the fort and they are referred to as the First Colony. Outside the fort, at a distance of about two to eight miles, another group lived on the north side of the Rapidan starting in early 1718. They would have seen Fort Germanna, and, later, when Germanna became the seat of Spotsylvania County, they went to court there. So this Second Colony has some association with the Fort and with Germanna.
The Germans kept coming after the First and Second Colonies had departed the area of Fort Germanna. Most of these later comers had no direct association with Fort Germanna. But so many of them were friends and relatives of the first two Colonies that it seems an arbitrary decision not to include them in the Germanna set.
Where should the cutoff be between people who should be labeled Germanna citizens and those who do not qualify? I have always taken a liberal view on this question favoring a broad inclusion; however, some limits have to be drawn. I have found it convenient to call all the Germans who lived on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains as meriting the designation of Germanna citizens. Since so much of genealogy is location related, especially to the court houses, I sometimes define a Germanna citizen as one who lived in the modern counties of Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison, and Rappahannock, and their predecessor counties of Essex, Spotsylvania, Orange, Stafford, and Prince William. This is more restrictive than saying the east side of the Blue Ridge.
Some people are interpreting Germanna as some strange way of saying "German", and they are posing questions which even go outside of the liberal interpretation of Germanna which I use. No one is to be excluded but some of the comments and questions here could be more to the point of Germanna.
(18 Feb 05)