Category: Research

When President Herbert C. Hoover was elected to office in 1928 (serving 1929—1933), there was a great deal of interest in tracing his lineage, much as we’ve seen happen with Barack and Michelle Obama’s ancestry. Information from the Hoover family indicated that the immigrant ancestor was named Andrew Hoover (Andreas Huber), that he was born in Baden, Germany, and arrived at Philadelphia about 1740 at age 15 years old. He married Margaret Pfautz and settled for a time in Frederic County, Maryland, before migrating farther south to Randolph County, North Carolina.

Trippstadt
Initial speculation by Richard W. Staudt was that Andreas Huber was from the Huber family of Trippstadt. While the name Huber was virtually nonexistent in Germany 100 years before the emigration from the Palatinate to America began, it is now widespread. Many of those Huber families are descended from the Trippstadt Hubers.

This family was first found in the Palatinate in the second half of the 17th century. Martin Huber, the first found in area records was there as early as 1666. One of his younger sons was named Johann Andreas Huber. Also in the area were Johann Andreas of Mausmuhle, who sponsored his nephew Johann Andreas, who was born 6 Nov 1720 and baptized at the Thaleischweiler Lutheran Church.

However, an examination of “Names of Foreigners who took the Oath of Allegiance, 1727-1775” shows that there were two Andreas Hubers who immigrated to America about this time—one in 1738 and one in 1741. The passenger list for the ship Two Sisters (1738) lists Andreas Hoover, age 15. The passenger list for the ship Friendship (1741) lists Andreas Huber, age 20. Thus, Andreas Hoover (1738) was born ca 1722/3 and Andreas Huber (1741) was born circa 1720/1. Given this information, it is fairly obvious that Andreas Hoover (1738) was most likely President Hoover’s immigrant ancestor, while Andreas (1741) was most likely the Johann Andreas Huber from Thaleishweiler.

Baden-Baden
So, if President Hoover’s ancestor wasn’t from Trippstadt, where was he from? Mr. Macco, a German genealogist retained by Mr. Staudt, initiated a search for Andreas Hoover’s (1738) origins. Mr. Macco initiated a search for Andreas Huber, born ca 1721-1723, in Baden-Baden. Although he was not confident about finding a Lutheran Huber in the mostly Catholic parishes in Baden-Baden, he was able to locate Huber families. For instance, on 2 Oct 1689, Franz Anton Huber, son of Johann Adam, butcher, was baptized. Macco found a number of Huber families, including several with men of the same given name—an indication that the families had been there for several generations.

However, he was not able to find an Andreas, born 1721 to 1723, nor is that name found in the local Huber families. Therefore, he determined that the immigrant ancestor could not have been from Baden. So, he turned his examination back to the Palatinate.

Ellerstadt
The only Andreas he was able to locate was the son of Gregor Jonas and Maria (Kreutzer) Huber of Ellerstadt, in the district of Durkhëim. This Andreas was born at Ellerstadt and baptized 29 Jan 1723 in the Lutheran church. No more records were apparently found for Andreas in the church book, so he likely did not remain in Ellerstadt. Staudt writes that “…the names of many other citizens of Ellerstadt appear in the same passenger list, there cannot be any doubt of his identity.”*

Mr. Macco also decided that since the village Ellerstadt had once —for 7 years, starting in 1754 ( 16 years after Andreas’ emigration— belonged to the Marquis of Baden-Baden, that this was why the family thought their ancestor was from Baden. Therefore, this had to be the immigrant ancestor of President Hoover.

Ittlingen
However, while the Andreas Huber of Ellerstadt was the only one found by Mr. Macco, he was not the only man who could be Herbert Hoover’s immigrant ancestor. Baptism records for the village of Ittlingen show an Andreas Huber, born 13 May 1724, baptized 14 May 1724, son of Johannes and Ottilia (___) Huber.** Ittlingen is in the Kraichgau region in the Heidelberg district of Baden. Furthermore, from what I can tell from 18th century maps of the area, Ittlingen was also part of Baden at the time of Andreas’ emigration in 1738.

Annette Burgert makes an even stronger argument for Andreas Huber (1738) being from Ittlingen, not Ellerstadt. By examining the origins of the other passengers of the ship Two Sisters, she was able to determine that several other passengers—Johann Gottlieb Bräuninger, Johan Martin Bräuninger, Johann Michael Oesterlin, Dietrict Benedict, Hans Peter Sailer, Pleickerd Dietrich Sailer and Wolfgang Braun—were from Ittlingen. All of these names appear in the Ittlingen records. It is unlikely that the child Andreas would be traveling alone, but no other passenger from the Two Sisters has been traced to Ellerstadt.

Staudt argued that Andreas was traveling with Wolfgang Braun and his nephew Adam Braun, who was married to Andreas’ sister, Anna Elizabeth. Adam and Anna Elizabeth (Huber) Braun supposedly took passage on a ship that arrived 7 weeks after Andreas’ and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where several other siblings had settled. However, it has since been shown that the Anna Elizabeth Huber and Johann Adam Braun who married  on 24 Sep 1738 in Ellerstadt remained at Ellerstadt. They did not immigrate to Pennsylvania, nor settle in Lancaster County.

Furthermore, Andreas Huber married Margaret Pfautz, granddaughter of Hans Michael Pfautz, a 1727  immigrant from Rohrbach, near Sinsheim, just northwest of Ittlingen. Since it is a well known fact that the Germans emigrated in groups and settled in America near/with groups from their old villages in Germany, this, too, strengthens the argument that Andreas Huber (1738) was from Ittlingen.

Conclusions
It is always good to recognize that your conclusions are only as good as the facts that are available to you at any given time. I believe that Mr. Macco drew conclusions based on the information he had—conclusions that any one of us would have made given the same facts. However, additional research has turned up new information, new facts that change the picture. At this time, I find the argument that Andreas Huber was born in Ittlingen, not Ellerstadt, to be very compelling.

What does this mean to me and my research? It opens up the possibility that the Andreas Huber born in Ellerstadt was the same who emigrated aboard the ship Edinburgh in 1754. Additional research is needed to confirm it, of course, but for now it is a plausible hypothesis.

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* The names of the other passengers who matched the passenger list of the Two Sisters is not provided in the Staudt article. And according to Annette Burgert, none of the passengers have been proven to be from Ellerstadt.

** But what about the difference in age? Andreas (Ittlingen) was born in 1724 and would have been only 14 in 1738, not 15 as stated on the passenger list. Annette Burgert shows in her research that the ages on the list are not exact. For instance, Dietrich Benedict was listed as being 30 years old. Baptismal records from Ittlingen show he was born 11 Jun 1710, making him only 28. This holds true for Pleickerd Dietrich Sailer, too. He was listed as being 24, but was born 29 May 1719.

Sources:

• Staudt, Richard W., “Origin of the Hoover Families,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly (National Genealogical Society: 1929), Vol 17, No. 1, page 1-6.
• Kephart, Major Calvin, “Hoover American Ancestry,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly (National Genealogical Society: 1929), Vol 17, No. 1, page 6-24, Vol 17, No 4, Pages 53-56.
• Kephart, Major Calvin, “Hoover (Huber) Ancestry,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly (National Genealogical Society: 1929), Vol 23, No. 4, page 110; Kephart actually confuses land pruchases of Andreas Huber (1754) in Maryland as being those of Andreas Huber (1738)
• Burgert, Annette Kunselman, “18th Century Emigrants from Northern Kraichgau,” (Breinigsville, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1983), Vol 16, page 180-181.
• Burgett, Annette Kunselman, “18th Century Emigrants from the Western Palatinate,” (Breinigsville, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1985), Vol 19, page 177.
• Davenport, John Scott, “Earliest Pfautz/Fouts Families in America,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly (National Genealogical Society: 1975), Vol 63, Number 4, page 243-249.
• Staudt, Richard W., “The Huber-Hoover Family of Aesch, Switzerland and Trippstadt, Palatinate with some Accent on Migrations to Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine (The Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania: 1935), Vol 12, No 2, page 223-243.