A Pennsylvania Dutch Genealogy
the genealogy & family research site of Kris Hocker
My 4x great grandfather Philip Kline was born on 6 Mar 1799, most likely in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He died 30 Jan 1877.
My great great grandfather Dr. Charles T. Waage died on 6 Mar 1921 in Pennsburg, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
On 24 Jan 1733, John Goughnour warranted 105 acres on a branch of the Pequea in Conestoga (now Pequea) Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, recorded in Lancaster County Warrants #G14. Three days later, John Taylor surveyed the property, noting it adjoined Christian Preaaman [sic], Have Line [sic], Christian Stone, and Samuel Buyer.1
John Jacob Goughnour’s Conestoga tract survey
On 15 April 1761, Jacob Gouchnour patented these 105 acres.2 Jacob purchased another 167.5 acres in Conestoga from Christian Hoober on 26 Nov 1761.3 [see “Christian Preaaman” on map] This tract had been warranted to John Smith in 1734 and patented to Jacob Huber in 1759.
Jacob Goughnour had died prior to 4 Nov 1780 when his heirs—Jacob & Margaret Goughnour, Christian Goughnour, Henry & Ann Goughnour, Abraham Goughnour, Tobias Goughnour, Christian & Catharine (Goughnour) Hess, and Joseph Goughnour—sold 50 acres of this tract, adjoining Samuel Byer, to his son John Goughnour.4
On 12 Mar 1781, John & Elizabeth Gochenour sold this 50 acres, adjoining Samuel Buyers, to his brother Adam Gochenour & Henry Rush, all of Conestoga Township.5 Adam and the Rushs held onto the property for a little over a year before selling it to Christopher Ort on 23 Aug 1782.6
Christopher Ort, a mason, and Catharine his wife sold this 50 acres to Daniel Musser of Strasburg Township on 21 Nov 1795.7
My great great grandfather Henry D. Snyder was born on 3 March 1859 to Joseph and Judith (Deysher) Snyder of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He died 30 Sep 1931.
My 8x great grandfather Hans Thiebold Jock died on 3 Mar 1708 in Rußheim, Baden, Germany.
My great great great grandmother Helena (Person) Dillinger died on 3 Mar 1893, quite likely in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania.
On 2 Mar 1819 George Hocker, son of Johan Adam & Sophia Maria (Hershey) Hocker, and Magdalena Landis, daughter of Henry and Catharine (___) Landis, were married at Zion Lutheran Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. They were only married for six short years before she died in 1825.
Do you know me?
The next installment in the Unidentified Pennsylvanians series features a photo of a young woman. She may have lived in the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania area and may have been either a friend of or related to either the Greulich, Wieder, Waage, Snyder, or Witmer families. The photo was likely taken in the early 20th century.
For more photos visit the Unidentified People photo gallery.
Happy birthday to Isabella Aitken! Isabella was my great great great grandmother. She was born 27 Feb 1816 in Carnwath Parish, Lanark, Scotland to William and Marion (Brown) Aitken. She died 1 Dec 1856 in Whitburn Parish, Linlithgow, Scotland.
I just got a chance to watch the latest episode of Who Do You Think You Are, featuring Blair Underwood. I learned quite a bit about research areas I’ve had no need to investigate. I also saw a great example of why in researching your family scratching the surface is not nearly enough.
What struck me the most was the story of his ancestor Sauney Early, a former slave. The research found that by 1900 Sauney had been institutionalized in a mental hospital. Subsequent research found newspaper articles from the 1870s and 1880s which seemed to show an angry, super-religious nut who kept getting into serious trouble with his neighbors that lead to him being shot several times—once in the face by his own weapon.
If they’d stopped researching there, Mr. Underwood would have been left with a negative impression of his ancestor. While mental illness isn’t anything to be ashamed about—and I’m sure we’ve all got relatives who’ve suffered from it somewhere in our family trees—the newspaper accounts are only one side of the story.
And the story looks very different from another vantage point.
In one newspaper account Sauney reportedly stole a cow from a neighbor and killed it, then argued with the neighbor and tried to shoot him when he came to inquire about the cow. Sauney was shot instead. Paints Sauney in a bad light, hmm?
However, the researchers found a deposition from Sauney’s landlord that stated the neighbor’s cow had trespassed onto Sauney’s land and into his corn. The impression I had was that this wasn’t the first time his neighbor’s cows had done so and the neighbor wasn’t too concerned about the damage his cows were doing. However, to Sauney it was huge. The corn was the means that enabled him to feed and care for his family and the cows were destroying it. His actions seem quite justified now, don’t they?
Another article described another argument—this time with another neighbor—about cutting down timber. This time the neighbor shot Sauney three times. The shooting was deemed self-defense and the neighbor was released from custody. According to a subsequent article, the black community was outraged.
If Sauney was truly an angry, violent, crazy man would his community have supported him and been outraged on his behalf, would his landlord have defended him? Probably not. The story of Sauney Early now looks like that of a man who was trying to take care of his family, raising crops and cutting down firewood, who got into disputes with his neighbors and was vilified in the press—most likely because they were white and he was black.
But Mr. Underwood would never have known this side of the story if the research had stopped with the newspaper articles.
The Sauney Early story showed me very clearly the need to do more than just scratch the surface when researching the story of our family. When we grab the low hanging fruit and move on, we may be revealing only part of the story and distorting our view of that ancestor.
If our goal is to know who we are and where we came from only the full story will do. The genealogical proof standard calls for a “reasonably exhaustive search for records that contain pertinent information.” While you may not require your research to meet professional standards, I’m sure you care about knowing the truth about your ancestors. Digging as deep as you can into the records is the only way to make sure that the full story is revealed.
Happy birthday to my 4 times great grandfather George Krauss! He was born 23 Feb 1783 and died 22 Jun 1844.
I think I answered a question that’s been bothering me for a while yesterday. But I didn’t do it by researching my ancestors.
My ancestor Johan “Hans” Adam Hacker emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania aboard the ship Ann, landing in Philadelphia on 28 Sep 1749. He was the first to immigrate. His brother Johan Georg followed in 1751, then his parents—Christoph and Anna Margaretha (Jock) Hacker—and his sisters Christina (Hacker) Lang and Margaretha (Hacker) Haushalter with their husbands in 1752.
When my distant cousin John Garrett Hocker was in Germany in the 1990s (I believe) he found that the Hackers applied for permission to become citizens of Gräben. They were denied. So, they applied for permission to emigrate to “norde-amerika.” John wrote about his trip to Rußheim and my great uncle William Wingeard included John’s essay in his book A German-American Hacker-Hocker Genealogy. No date was given for this application, but it had to be prior to their emigration in 1752 and possibly before Adam’s emigration in 1749.
So, that tells me why they left Germany. But why did they settle near Brickerville, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania? It’s known that the Germans tended to move in groups and settle amongst people they’d known in a prior location. But I found no other family already in the area.
Rußheim and its neighbors
The answer has less to do with immediate family and more to do with the larger community. In Feb 1749 three widows from Rußheim applied for permission to move to Pennsylvania. They apparently wanted to remarry, but their prospective spouses were denied citizenship in Rußheim—possibly because they were only tenant farmers/farmhands. They were granted permission to leave.
One of these women was Margaretha (Heger) Elser.1 She was engaged to a man named Mock from Gräben. His given name was not provided, but a Henrich Mock and Peter Elser appear on the passenger list of the ship Ann which arrived in Philadelphia in Sep 1749. Both of these names appear in the records of the Warwick congregation (now Emanuel Lutheran Church) at Brickerville.
Adam’s name appears just below theirs on the ship list. So, it’s probable that he was traveling with people that he knew from his village.2
But why did they settle near Brickerville? Looking at the other names in the Warwick congregation records, you’ll see Stober, Weidman, Ness, and Oberlin. All of these names appear as residents of either Rußheim, Liedolsheim, Gräben or Linkenheim in 1709 lists.3 The Hackers intermarried with some of these families—Adam and his brother Georg both married Wiedman sisters. Additionally, the names Haushalter and Lang/Long also appear in the church records. It’s quite possible they were relations to Adam’s brothers-in-law Lorentz Haushalter and Johan Michael Lang.
So while there were no Hackers waiting to receive him when he arrived in 1749, Adam settled amongst people he may have known—or their relatives—from the villages surrounding Rußheim.
On 22 November 1717, Martin Kendig (Kendick, Kendrick, Cundigg) and John Herr (Heer) were warranted 5,000 acres in Lancaster County by the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania. They, in turn, transferred this land to their fellow immigrants. On the 12th of 9mo (November) 1720, four tracts on the Pequea were surveyed in the right of Martin Kendig and Hans Heer to Hans Boyer, Jacob Hoober, Martin Boyer/Abraham Smith, and Christian Stone/Jacob Boyer.1
Jacob Boyer’s Conestoga/Martic tract
Sometime between 1720 and 1735, the land was passed from Christian Stone to Jacob Boyer. “Jacob Biers” patented 162 acres on Pequea Creek on 1 Oct 1735.2 Jacob Boyer apparently lived on this tract for his entire life.
On 20 Jun 1772, Jacob (the elder) and his wife Catharine sold 112 acres from their two tracts—they owned another tract adjoining the first directly to the south in Martic Township—to their son Henry Boyer.3 This piece of property adjoined that of Jacob Boyer Jr., John Jameson, and Samuel Boyer, and lay along the eastern edge of Jacob Sr.’s two tracts.
On the same date, Jacob and Catharine also sold 160 acres from their two tracts to Jacob Boyer Jr. This piece of land included all the land north of Pequea Creek and a strip south of the creek between those of Henry Boyer (to the east) and one previously sold to Abraham Smith (to the west).4
Jacob was apparently preparing for the future in Jun 1772. He also wrote his will at that time. The will abstract names his wife Catharine, children: Jacob, Henry, Barbara, Anna, Mary, Catharine and Elizabeth wife of Jacob Steiner, and grandchildren: Cornelius and Frederick Steiner. The will was probated 30 Oct 1775 and named Catharine and son-in-law Jacob Steiner as executors.5
Several years later, on 22 Oct 1781, Jacob [Jr.] and Mary Boyer sold 16 acres from their tract to Rudy Miller.6 By metes and bounds this piece was situated in the northwest corner of the plot, north of Pequea Creek. It adjoined land of Rudy Miller, John Line and Pequea Creek.
On 3 Mar 1806, Rudy Miller’s heirs—Rudolph Miller, Stephen & Mary (Miller) Rine, and Hugh & Barbara (Miller) Evans—sold their interest in Rudy Miller’s four tracts of contiguous land in Conestoga and Martic townships, including this 16 acres, to John Miller, another of Rudy Miller’s children.7