• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Genealogy to Colonial times and beyond

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

zimmerstutzen

70 Cal.
Joined
Apr 2, 2009
Messages
5,845
Reaction score
1,197
Got a family reunion coming up in August and I am as close to the family historian as anyone. I am trying to get the grandparents families all back as far as the "old country" Unfortunately, family trees tend to be a boring series of names, and dates. So I am trying hard to make those past generations relevant. Found a couple of rabble rousers in the family. One Dutch Quaker, Gerhard Hendricks, who was the subject of proceedings in Kriegsheim, Palatinate to be expelled from the country for refusing to pay the the Turkish War tax. (Turks had invaded as far as Vienna in 1683 and the principalities still were paying for the armies that helped defend Vienna) He landed in Philadelphia in 1685 and promptly petitioned the Colonial council to abolish slavery in the colony. Two of his grandsons became Mayors of mid 18th century Philadelphia. Two brothers Yost Yoder and Hance Yoder, escaped from religious persecution in the 1690's in Bern Switzerland and made it to Pennsylvania by 1713, where they carved out a rather large farms, and built mills and grand houses that still stand today. Yost had the reputation as quite the hunter and is said to have trapped and killed five wolves in a single day. A grandson of Yost, Captain Jacob Yoder became a local hero in Pennsylvania during the French and Indian wars as well as in Kentucky, where he settled and died. Capt Yoder is reported to be the first White English to navigate the rivers from the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. Hans Angstadt built a gun shop a few miles from the Yoders in 1747 and fathered the the several Angstadts who were known for their longrifles of the Revolutionary War and Golden age. Several ancestors captured and held as prisoners by the Indians during the French and Indian War. Several enlisted in the Revolutionary War. Another ancestor owed the Penns' the balance on a land purchase and took his wagon load of grain to Philadelphis some 25 miles away, to sell the wheat and pay his balance. The team returned days later with an empty wagon. He was never seen again and the debt was unpaid. That ancestor's son was in a heavily German speaking area of Berks County, PA and was known as the "Die Barre Bieber" (Bieber The Bear) for his tall stature and great strength. It is said that a group of Hessian soldier camped for the night on his farm and when they got too boisterous. he lifted a keg of cider over his head and smashed it in the midst of them injuring several and sending them packing. My Great Great Grandfather Abraham Hilbert had 21 children. five of his sons served in the Civil War, two never came home. When he died in 1894 he had 110 grand children and 96 great grandchildren. Two great great uncles were what were called Pow Wow doctors. One had an original leather and brass bound book of German faith healing, remedies and 'spells' called the 7th Book of Moses. All kinds of strange symbols were carved on the trees in the woods surrounding their houses. I can just barely remember seeing that book in the mid 1950's and "Uncle Fred" slapped my hand pretty hard just for touching it. When he got old, he his the book in a hollow tree. He eventually told my aunt where to find it making her promise not to let anyone in the family but her sons see it. I asked to see it several times and she wouldn't allow it. Eventually some professor from Germany was given permission to come and photograph the pages I showed up while the professor was there thinking maybe I could see part of the book, but they both quickly through a sheet over the book and neither would let me see any part.. She is gone 30 years now and my cousins insist they they don't know what happened to the book. I also learned that one of my great uncles on my dad's side lost his sight in his right eye when the old double barrel muzzle loading shotgun he was hunting with exploded.
 
Old family history is great and fun. We are very lucky to have a professonally done geneology up through my grandfather. It is fun to see all the individuals who had "mental illness" or hospitalizations for unmentioned reasons....The more interesting things arent listed, but can sometimes be found through old military records etc.. Example ...an ancestor back in the Civil War who was such a patriot, that he enrolled five different times in Upstate NY for the bounty. Only five times because he was hung when he tried to sign up the sixth time and was recognized by the recruiting officer! Great stuff!
 
Back
Top