John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 2234

Let me clarify a point concerning the www.progenealogists.com web site that I mentioned in the last Note.  This page does not explicitly make the claim that the 50 odd people who left Freudenberg arrived in Savannah, but they strongly imply this was the case.  The correspondent who brought the page to my attention said,

"The names of those 50 people were apparently written down in the Death Register at a church in Freudenberg when they left in the spring in 1738.  There is a record of those very same people landing in Savannah on September 18, 1738.  (I have 3 sources to cite this.)"

One of the sources was the web page cited above.  The presentation on the web page convinced that reader that these names were immigrants and a list of their names was made when they arrived in Savannah.

The other two sources which the correspondent cited were:

1) A book written by Gail Brietbard, entitled " Some Early Virginia Immigrants ", and
2) A book on the History of Freudenberg (which I believe is in German) written by Dr. Wilhelm Guethling (published in 1956).

How did the general idea that the Freudenberg emigrants went to Georgia develop?  In the Death Register from Freudenberg, it says (using the Yoder translation):

"As information I wished to write down on these pages that today, the 13th of March, 1738, there left for Georgia, the new island under the protection of His Majesty the King of England, out of this land and parish, with the knowledge and consent of the authorities of this our land, the following named persons, some of them householders with wife and children, others single male persons, namely":  [The names are listed.]

There are at least two points in this statement that should make one suspicious.  I will start the examination of these in the next Note.  Perhaps you would like to send me your thoughts on this statement before then.
(17 Jan 06)