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.

Evangelical Visitor, vol.1, no.1, 1887

Technically, I can't put this in my collection of premiere issues because it is scanned and on the internet in the collection of Messiah College for The Brethren in Christ Church (River Brethren). One of my great- great- somethings was a founder of this denomination [see correction below], so I thought I'd take a look. Reading through it, nothing seems any different than the German Baptist Brethren/Church of the Brethren of the 1880s. There was an annual conference, "love feast" (communion) with foot washing, modest clothing for both men and women. It was a mix of Mennonite, Brethren and Methodist, with emphasis on piety, just like the other Brethren. I'm not sure why these groups had to split up--it's usually the leadership--nor do I know why they didn't all vote to get back together in 2008 (300th anniversary) since the 6 or 7 groups are tiny by themselves. Together they probably don't reach 100,000 in membership in the U.S. Ah well, they didn't ask me, and I haven't been a member for over 35 years.

Having said that, I found this item by "C.S." from Louisville, Ohio sounding just like the "emergent church" controversy of today:

It has been, and is yet the aim of some professors of religion [i.e. people who profess to be religious] to get religion into such a position, that there is no cross connected with it. Men have been trying to dress up religion so that the offense of the cross should cease. . . they make daily compromise with the world.

Another fun item was reminiscences of the "old days" in various Ohio counties--like the 1850s--that people sent in. One obituary observed that the "brother" was not a believer, although he was married to one. The cost was $1.00 a year for 12 issues, and if you wanted to write something for the paper, you submitted it in ink and used only one side of the paper. The Elkhart, Indiana church had had a June Love Feast at the Brethren Meeting house, 16 mi. south of town with wonderful testimonies, Bible studies, exhortations, and a supper, with people returning home the next day rejoicing.

Based just on the numbering (vol. 121, no.1, Winter 2007), I'm guessing that the (new title) journal for BIC "In Part" is the granddaughter of Evangelical Visitor. She's handsome, fashionable, and topical, but not as spiritually satisfying.

Update: I checked my genealogy database and my notes say that my ancestor, John Wenger, split from the River Brethren in Montgomery Co. Ohio over issues of closed communion and meeting houses. His group (Pentecostal Brethren in Christ) were known as the Wengerites. All this is in Daniel Wenger's book on the Wengers. His son Christian Wenger was the father of my great-grandmother, Nancy. This may be more than you wanted to know about a tiny Ohio sect, but "The name Brethren in Christ became more common and about 1861 three groups in OH called themselves Brethren in Christ; the original River Brethren, the Wengerites and the Swankites. The River Brethren officially adopted the name Brethren in Christ in 1863 at the outbreak of the civil war in order for drafted conscientious objectors to obtain legal recognition as members of an established religious organization opposed to war. By 1924 the last of the Pentecostal Brethren in Christ had joined the Pilgrim Holiness Church (which merged with the Wesleyan Methodist Church to form the Wesleyan Church)."

Updating genealogy

I don't have my genealogy database with me on my laptop, but today I noticed at the Brethren Genealogy listserv that the FamilyHart database had been updated--524,488 people and 182,471 families. It is a Pennsylvania Dutch family, so I took a peek at the list of surnames. Yup. We're there. Well, not me personally, because only one of my grandfather's brothers (George d. 1944) is listed. But if you are related to any Shirks or Wengers, you'll find family there. My great grandmother, Nancy J. Wenger is (according the the FamilyHart DB) a 10th generation descendant of Hans SCHÜRCH. The Schurch family originated in Sumiswald, Bern, Switzerland. There are many spellings of the family name in America including Shirk, Sherk, Shoerg, Schrock. And a lot of Hans! I think I tracked Nancy back to Anna Burkhart Shirk, then sort of lost Anna in the mists of time. I think Anna married a Wenger and they had a son who immigrated. I'm not a real genealogist, I only have copies of a few wedding certificates, death notices and draft records. I rely on the kindness of strangers who do the heavy lifting.

3364 Friday Family Photo

Kleppinger Clippinger Klepinger--that's a family name in my genealogy (maternal side). I wish I had a photo of Anna Maria Klepinger, also called Polly. But Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre didn't invent the daguerreotype process until 1839, 11 years after she was married. I'm guessing it was considered a bit worldly in their conservative religious group, even when it became popular.

Insert here
a photo of
the lovely

Anna Maria, b. 1808, d. 1875
and
her husband
Christian Wenger, b. 1805, d. 1885
on their
wedding day
August 14, 1828

Christian and Polly were successful farmers--owning over 1,000 acres of land near Englwood which is near Dayton, Ohio. However, they started married life with almost nothing. My grandfather's older sister, the woman we called Aunt Allie (Mrs. J. Edwin Jay, later President of Wilmington College) related this tale for the Kleppinger researcher: "It is said that when Christian and his bride came to their new home on horseback and dismounted to enter their cabin, he said, 'Polly, this is all we have.' and showed her the coin. It is said to have been 50 cents."

Christian was a Deacon in the River Brethren (Brethren in Christ) which I think was a split off and mix of Mennonite and Dunker Brethren. They had 12 children, and the one I do have a photo of was Nancy, my grandfather's mother. That's probably where Aunt Allie heard the story of her grandparents' 50 cent start in life.

Although I had Christian and Polly in my database (the Wenger family I've written about before), I was able to find this anecdote by using Heritage Quest Online at my public library. You can search census data, or people, places and books. The book Kleppinger-Clippinger Klepinger family history by Stanley J. Kleppinger (Allentown, PA: George P. Schlicher & Son, 1956) 351 p. with its index had been completely scanned and was easily searchable. The next time you have a question about someone hiding in your family tree, ask your librarian if there are any on-line sources available.

Kleppinger
Klepinger
Wenger
genealogy
Brethren
Brethren in Christ

2454 Writing family memoirs

Today it is my turn to contribute the prompt for my writing group. I submitted, "List or expand on the ten pleasures, delights, frustrations, joys, or challenges of writing, collecting, or expanding family memoirs in the style you have chosen." After I started on the topic, I ended up with 4 typewritten (wp), single spaced pages, and I didn't even mention the class as one of the joys. The intent when I suggested it, was that the writer might record a map or a template for the one who follows, because you are always building a foundation for someone else's work.

I'm not going to post it here (aren't you glad). But one of the frustrations is that once I found genealogy on the internet, I was swamped and had to reinterpret who I was. Looking through family Bibles when I was young, 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 joined a genealogy listserv for Church of the Brethren and found surname websites and county histories on the internet. I uncovered my foremothers' maiden names. And I found Cousin Dan. I bought his CD of my Wenger side (a lot of Mennonites) of the family "Hans and Hannah Wenger; North American Descendants" because the BOOK HAD 3,300 PAGES! Over three thousand pages of family I didn't know about until 1996!

I just printed off the "short list" from my FamilyTreeMaker for my ancestors--it runs to 20 pages, and I'm now 13th not 8th. It is messing with my mind.

Wenger Winger Wengert Wengerd Wingert Wingerd Wingard Whanger Reunion meets the 3rd week-end of August near Akron, PA. I've never attended.

Chart of the Brethren

106 Wenger, Wanger, Winger, Wingert--you may be one too!

My grandfather was only 16 and living on a farm in Montgomery County, Ohio, when his widowed mother died. Consequently, her surname, Wenger, wasn’t in my consciousness until I took a mild interest in genealogy. Once I learned to look for Wenger, I noticed a huge book (over 1200 pages) at a used book store, “The Wenger Book; a foundation book of American Wengers,” Samuel S. Wenger, Ed. (Pennsylvania German Heritage History, Inc., 1978). So I bought it. The book chronicles the descendants of one Christian Wenger who arrived in the United States from Switzerland in 1727 with his wife Eve Graybill (Kraybill, Krabill). I think by 1900 they had about 200,000 descendants, but as many of them as there were, they are not my Wengers.

My Wengers are descended from Hans and Hannah according to "Hans and Hannah Wenger, North American Descendants," a four volume work by Daniel L. Wenger. They didn’t come to this country until 1749, but they were also Mennonites. This information is available on CD and an on-line database which makes it easy to search.

Three of their sons and Hannah immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1748 and 1749. Hans apparently died shortly before the trip. Their descendants have spread across the country and the world. Many other families are also included in the database, including other Wenger lines, in particular many descendants of Christian Wenger, immigrant of 1727 (of the book I can‘t use). There are over 100,000 names of individuals who are not connected to the Hans and Hannah Wenger family. These names (like my father’s parents) were collected in order to assist in identifying possible other ancestors of Wenger descendants and possible other Wenger descendants.

The DLW genealogy database contains over 232,000 names (last updated Oct. 1, 2002) of individuals, mostly descended from 18th century Mennonites, River Brethren (Brethren in Christ) and German Baptist Brethren (Church of the Brethren) who settled in Lancaster, Lebanon and Franklin Counties, Pennsylvania, in Ontario, Canada and in Washington County, Maryland and Botetourt County, Virginia. In the 1800s a number of the families moved to Darke County and Montgomery County, Ohio and to Iowa, Indiana and Kansas. In the early 1900s there was continued migration to Upland and Modesto, California.

The database can be searched at RootsWeb. If you are a descendant of Hans and Hannah and known to the author, you will have a unique number in this database. And that would make us cousins.