ADGD Attention Deficit Genealogy Disorder

 When I was a child I began looking through family Bibles at my grandparents. I determined that both my parents were seventh generation Americans, both Church of the Brethren, one German descended, the other Scots-Irish. That made me eighth. For maybe 30 years, if the subject ever came up, I said, "I'm eighth generation American."

Then I discovered genealogy using the Internet.  I joined a genealogy listserv for Church of the Brethren which was very helpful in determining maiden names and found surname websites and county histories. Then I found out about Cousin Dan Wenger who had a massive database of over 3,000 pages of my "closest" relatives.  I let my software manipulate my branches and found out I was 13th instead of 8th generation American.

Danners in the tree

There used to be a lot discussion on the Danner genealogy forum about Blythe Danner (like whether she was one of ours), but if her daughter Gwyneth doesn't stop saying such strange things, the conversation will really cool. (I'm a descendant of Henry Danner).

4809 Digging for Danners

My Ohio State e-mail account is currently a magnet for spam on gambling and Russian spam. Does everyone get Russian language spam or am I just one of the lucky ones? I never got it before the new "secure" system OSU OIT instituted awhile back. It can almost make one yearn for cheap ink cartridges, mortgages, and virgin lesbians, which used to be the content of my spam. Yesterday I had about 500 items in those categories.

After figuring out how to trash 20 at a time, but scanning for those I didn't want to lose, I found an older one I had not deleted but held to read later. And it was from the Brethren genealogy listserv on Samuel Danner, grandson of Michael Danner, Sr., who immigrated in 1727. I'm a descendant of Henry Danner, not Jacob, Samuel's father, but I copied and pasted into my Family Tree Maker notes to be figured out later. I'm a descendant of Henry's daughter, Rachel. Merle Rummel, who contributed this information to the listserv on April 16 had an interesting item about the location of a Sauer Bible in the Danner family. The first Bible printed in America in a European language was not in English, but in German and Christopher Sauer of Philadelphia published it:

"Brethren Roots and Branches (predecessor of our current Brethren Roots) of 1987 (Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter) had two discussions on the Sauer Bible owned by Samuel Danner Sr (son of Jacob Danner - grandson of Michael Danner), father of the minister Samuel Danner. This was the family records of the birth and marriages of Samuel SR Family (did not include deaths). The second presentation included the children and spouses of Samuel JR - and a partial list of grandchildren. The Bible is at the Duggan Library, Hanover College, Hanover IN. The records are in German -from the sequence of names - the Bible was passed down for 3 generations.