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The phrase "Baron Ludwig Fischer" was mentioned recently and Thom Faircloth doubted that Ludwig was a Baron. Thom is right; there was no Baron Ludwig Fischer but there was a Ludwig Fischer (Lewis Fisher), possibly two Ludwig Fischers if the tax reports are to be believed. The heirs of Ludwig Fischer let their imagination run away and before the story could be stopped, Ludwig Fischer was a Baron with a castle, etc., etc. Some of the heirs did believe that he left a fortune in Germany and they set out in a half-hearted way to reclaim it. Their story is told in Beyond Germanna in volume 9, number 3, page 501ff.
Bill and Susan Holsclaw have asked if anyone knows the maiden name of Catherine who was the second wife of Jacob Holtzclaw, the 1714 immigrant. At some time after his fourth child was born, and before his eighth child was born, he married Catherine Unknown. This is only one mystery and I have been intrigued by other aspects of the family. Let me recite my conundrum which is related to Bill and Susan’s question.
The eldest son of Jacob, namely John, married Catherine (Russell) Thomas, a widow with a young son Jacob. The two youngest sons of Jacob Holtzclaw, namely Jacob, Jr., and Joseph, married daughters of John Thomas and an unknown wife. Is there some connection between the Thomas who married Catherine and the Thomas daughters who lived in the RRV?
One can make a story that if there had been, then John Thomas (Hans Wendel) and his children might have followed the fortunes of Jacob Thomas and thereby have brought the Thomas family and the Holtzclaw families into closer contact.
Another possibility is that Catherine was from the RRV community. Thus, she might have been the tie between the Thomas family and the Holtzclaw family. Of course, neither of these possibilities might be true or both might be true. We just don’t know.
Catherine, the wife of the son John, is said to be a Russell. Some Russells were close to Alexander Spotswood. We could find no evidence that John Thomas and his wife Anna Maria Blankenbaker came in 1717, but perhaps this family became the servants of the Russell family. Thus, they might have escaped the lawsuits and the Headrights of Spotswood. Was there another member of the Thomas family who came, perhaps a brother of John Thomas, Sr.? Perhaps he married Catherine and had a son Jacob. The RRV Thomases might have continued to remain close to the Holtzclaw family just because of this connection.
If you want to see a three-generation chart of the Holtzclaw family, there is one on the germanna.com web site.
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(28 Feb 07)
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.