Illenschwang, Bavaria (Home of Andreas
Gaar)
Beyond Germanna is a newsletter-journal which
was published by John Blankenbaker for fifteen years from 1989 until
the November 2003 issue when publication was terminated. The
primary topic of this work is the Germanna colonists including their
origins and life in Germany, journeys to the New World, and their settlements,
histories, genealogies, associated families, and dispersions to other
areas. All of the fifteen volumes are still available in print
format by the year or by the issue. Also, all fifteen volumes are available
in the form of a compact disk (CD) in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
For more information about this CD whose content duplicates the printed
copies, click here.
The print version of Beyond Germanna was published
six times a year with at least ten pages per issue. For more
information about the 917 pages of Beyond Germanna including
a listing of the major articles, click here.
Fifteen articles drawn from Beyond Germanna are
stored in the archive section. The titles of these may be reached by
clicking here.
Germanna was the site of the first permanent German settlement
in Virginia. Though the Germans did not remain long at Germanna,
the name Germanna has become a symbol of all of the Germans who lived
on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia (as opposed
to those who lived in the Shenandoah Valley on the west side of the
Blue Ridge Mountains). More than one hundred families meet this criteria.
For a fuller explanation of Germanna, click here.
John and Eleanor Blankenbaker have visited the villages
in Germany of many of the Germanna people. A compact disc with pictures
and stories on the villages of the Germanna Colonists in Germany
and Austria has been prepared. For more information on this Photographic
Essay which has received rave reviews, click
here.
As a research aid, a booklet includes the men in Culpeper
County, Virginia, who were in subject to the draft in 1781. More than
1400 men are named. For more information on The Culpeper Classes,
click here.
The German Lutheran church in Madison County, Virginia,
(known today as Hebron) has communion lists from 1775 into the 1800's.
Because relatives tended to sit together, this has been a useful research
aid. For information on the soft-cover book, Hebron Communion Lists,
click here.
The Hebron Church kept a record of the baptisms from 1750
until 1813. An important part of these records were the sponsors who
were nearly always related to the parents. A book, Hebron Baptismal
Register, has been published which has the relationships of the sponsors
to the parents, a feature never before published. For more information,
click here.
For more information about John and Eleanor Blankenbaker,
click here.
For information about other Germanna sources, click here.
For information about the publications of Andreas Mielke,
click here.
Three generation charts in an abbreviated form are very useful
for studying a community. Selected ones will be shown here. These charts
are in the pdf format and require Acrobat Reader, version 5 or higher.
Most computers have this Reader installed. After going to one of these
pages, use the "back" button to return to this Home page. A number
of conventions will be encountered: oo means married; * means born; + means
died; c means circa. Some information is abbreviated. The numeral after
a given name is the date of birth; after oo is the date of marriage. The
first two digits of the year are sometimes omitted.
The early generations of Jacob
Holtzclaw family.
The first three Peter Weaver
generations.
For the Henry Huffman
family.
The first three generations of the Jacob Rector family.
The first three generations of the John
Carpenter family.
Revised 29 March 2007
Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by John Blankenbaker
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