Southwestern Pennsylvania was the destination of several members of the Germanna Colonies who moved there. While studying the Thomases, where several members of the family moved to what became southwestern Pennsylvania (at first it was thought to be a part of Virginia), I found that some of the Hardins moved there also. The Hardins were connected to the Holtzclaws enough that B. C. Holtzclaw devoted a chapter to them in Germanna Record 5 (the “ Big Red Book ”).
As an aid, I drew the chart of the first three generations of the Holtzclaws (the one I just put up on the germanna.com web site). It also fascinated me that the name Thomas occurs three times on this Holtzclaw chart. I have always wondered if there was any connection between the first Thomas who married a Russell girl and died and between the later Thomas girls who married Holtzclaw sons. I could not find any, but observed that the Hardin family and the Thomas family had people who moved to southwest Pennsylvania.
Who else moved there? The Baumgardners moved there. Some Hupps moved there. Some members of the Johann Michael Schmidt, Jr., family moved there (his wife was Anna Magdalena Thomas). Michael Crisler, son of David (Theobald) Crisler married Mary Ann DeBolt, a widow, who was born a Thomas. When studying the names in SW PA, another early names was Teagarden.
Somewhat later, when I found the Oberoewisheim-Neuenbuerg Ortssippenbuch , I was taken back to see these names in the index:
Debelt/Debold/Debolt, Hepp, Thomas, (and of course, Blanckenbuehler and Scheible).
In the village of Eppingen, not too far away, these are some of the names:
Dewald/Dibold, Diebolt(d, dt), Hepp/Hopp/Hupe.
One gets the impression that many of the people who went to Pennsylvania had known each other in the Old Country.
As other communications here recently commented, many of these people remained in Pennsylvania, but many of them moved on to Kentucky. The route that they took was down the Ohio River using flat boats which they built. Abraham Thomas left a description of the journey. Altogether, I have wondered how many of our people did go to Kentucky by the Ohio River.
I believe that Adam and John Smith did (their mother was Anna Magdalena Thomas). Jacob Holtzclaw, son of the immigrant Jacob, married Susannah Thomas. Jacob declared that he had raised a crop of corn in Kentucky by 1776, a story also reported by Adam Smith. Adam’s daughter, Susannah, married Abraham Thomas whom we know was in PA. Again, we have Holtzclaw and Thomas ties and a possible route through Pennsylvania. Intriguing!
(10 Jul 06)
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.