*[Das ist ja interessant.]
On January 6, 1997, I wrote the first of these Notes. Today, April 12, 2007, I am writing the last of them. So that makes 2,500 of them in a period of more than ten years.
When this list was first formed, the moderator was someone else besides George Durman. One individual claimed that we had no right to use the word “Germanna” as she seemed to think that she owned the word. The first moderator soon gave up the job and Sgt. George took up the work. Interest in the Notes picked up very slowly and in an attempt to secure more subscribers, I ran a contest which involved estimating how many ships made the trip between England and Virginia each year in the early Eighteenth Century.
My contest did little to build interest and then I realized it would take a longer process to build interest in the List. Being a person that liked to write, I decided to issue a series of Notes to build interest and to correct errors in our history. Little did I realize how long it would go on. At first, I kept very close to events that were immediately involved with the Germanna Colonies. However, when I read the story of the Moravian missionaries in traveling down the Great Wagon Road I decided that I would use that material in the Notes. I don’t think that any mini-series was as popular as that one was. So I decided to branch out from the Germanna Colonies into broader subjects. Which was good because I was needing new subjects. In the end I was repeating myself.
George Durman has been our moderator for more than ten years. I thank him for this devoted effort especially because he undertook to archive the Notes in a searchable depository.
I have never regarded the Notes as authoritarian though I did try to adhere closely to the truth. One should not take the Notes as an authority but one should regard them as a secondary source to be used as a guide. George and I can vouch that these archives have been the means to interest a lot of people in the Germanna Colonies.
I expect to issue some Research Comments in the future. These will be infrequent but perhaps more carefully researched and perhaps more original. In just over an hour I expect to be down at the local FHC trying to find some information about one of our Germanna families. It is not an ancestor of mine, but that doesn’t detract from an interesting story. I need more evidence and that is why the search in the German records. If I don’t find the information that I want, I will still issue a report so the information we know now doesn’t get lost. The particular family which is involved here is probably the first of the Germanna families to leave Germany. The family predates the members of the First and Second Colonies. It just happens that some people were delayed in route.
*[That sounds interesting.]
(12 Apr 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.