In the last Note, we saw that in The Gaar Genealogy (a book published in 1894), the family of Lewis Fisher and Anna Barbara Blankenbaker was in error (see page 521). Two of the children listed were actually ,and the name of one daughter was given incorrectly. The history behind this record is that it was obtained by John Wesley Garr, the father, in 1849 when he visited Madison, Virginia. I hope this establishes that The Garr Genealogy does obtain errors.
There is another family in which there is an error, namely the family of John Wilhoit, "one of the four brothers from Germany." It was not recognized that Johann Michael Willheit was the father. The wife of John Wilhoit is given in The Garr Genealogy as Margaret (Peggy) Weaver. This is an error as her name was Waldburga (or Walburga). That this is her name is shown in the church and civil records where she is called Burga and Wabburie.
An analysis of her case, based in part on the work of Johni Cerny and Gary Zimmerman, is in Beyond Germanna on page 321. Here it is shown that John Wilhoit and wife Burga attended the German Lutheran Church ("Hebron") in Culpeper County as communicants. Her name was also recorded in 1778 (see Mielke and Blankenbaker, "Hebron" Communion Lists ).
The civil records provide another vital clue. When Alexander Spotswood used 48 names as head rights, one of the names was Wabburie Wever (Weaver), who was a part of the family of Joseph Wever and Susanna (Clore) Wever. That she was not listed among the people who departed Gemmingen in 1717 suggests that she was born on the trip.
There was no other individual in the community who appears to have had the name Waldburga. That Burga was a member of the Weaver family and the Clore family is suggested strongly by the associations in the Communion Lists at the church. The name Margaret or Peggy is an error. Yet, the Garr work is held in so much regard that people insist on giving the wife of John Wilhoit as Waldburga (Margaret or Peggy) Weaver or as Margaret (Waldburga) Weaver. Let's face it the name Margaret is an error and there is no evidence to support this.
John Wilhoit and Lewis Fisher and their wives were not descendants of Andreas Gaar and Eva Seidelmann. The families of John and Lewis, and some others, were included in a supplement section at the back of the book. The suggestion from the analysis of the last two notes is the Gaars did not research these families as carefully as they did most of their work.
Among the families who
were
Garr descendants, there are some errors also, and a couple of examples showing this will be given later.
(20 Jun 05)
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.