New Jersey Research

Maybe if I write this down in my blog, I will eventually get it into my thick skull.

1790, 1800, 1810, 1820

Unfortunately, these censuses in New Jersey were not saved for posterity. Before the counties were required to submit their census schedules, one supposes that they were locally processed to produce raw statistical output, were otherwise unappreciated, and were destroyed. The only thing that has survived is the 1800 Census for Cumberland County.

So maybe I will stop looking and looking and looking for something not there, and then when I do remember, maybe I can stop refusing to believe such a thing could be true.

Mann Families in New Jersey

Today I was going through trying to fill in some of the several gaps I have for the children of Ernest Mann and Maria Sommer.  I decided to start with Peter Mann, for whom I have no birth or death, two marriages, no children, and tons of questions.  So this lead me to some investigation which can be summarized here:

There is documentation on familysearch of two marriages for Peter Mann, one in 1810 to Mary Hummer, and one in 1813 to Mary Kerr.  There are two documents pertaining to the marriage of Peter and Mary Kerr, one stating that Peter was from Hardwick.  Other family trees claim this couple subsequently moved to Lawrence, IL.  And meanwhile, I believe the Peter Mann marriage to Mary Hummer is the one I'm looking for because the HUMMER surname has appeared in some of the land records pertaining to my Ernest Mann.  Thus, I believe there were TWO Peter Mann's in the Sussex area in this time frame, and I am looking for the Peter Mann who married Mary Hummer.

But this exercise brings to mind some important research that I've done in the past but my conclusions for which have remained only inside my own head!  When I first started doing Mann research in New Jersey, I acquired a copy of a book called Descendants and Ancestors of Adam Overpeck and Elizabeth Mann of Sussex & Warren, New Jersey, Bucks, Northampton, Pike & Bedford Counties in PA by Norris Philip Wood.  The pages related to Mann are few, but it describes descendants of Phillip Mann born about 1748 in Bucks County, PA.  Phillip purchased land in Knowlton, Sussex, NJ in 1757 and he also had a tavern license from 1777-1779.  Phillip's children were, apparently, Phillip Jr., Jacob, John, and George, some of whom moved to Hardwick twp.  George of Hardwick twp and his wife Anna had several children, the oldest being Peter Mann, born 30 Aug 1793.  So here is, I believe, the Peter Mann who married Mary Kerr in 1813. Whether this couple eventually moved to Illinois is yet to be determined.

My point is that I have studied this book until I am blue in the face (!) and have never been able to make a  clear connection to my Ernest Mann line.  This is not to say there isn't one.  It might be considered that our Ernest Mann came to America because he already knew family that had arrived earlier, and potentially that was Phillip Mann, although I must say I have not seen the name Phillip in any of the lineage of the Menge family from Soedel.  If there is a link between the the two families, it's not obvious.  More research could be done on this topic, but to be honest, I haven't made it a priority.

But I do want to share and acknowledge that there were most definitely more than one Mann family group in the Sussex area in the late 1700's and early 1800's, probably both of German origins and associated with Lutheran churches.  For my research, however, they are so far separate families.

Maria Magdalena and An Emerging Theory

Maria Magdalena Summers (Sommer) is our 5th great-grandmother, and was the wife of Ernst Menge (aka Earnest Man). Over the past couple years, we've been able to piece together that Ernst came from Sodel, Hesse, Germany, arriving in Philadelphia in 1754 aboard the ship Edinburgh. We know that Ernst married first a widow named Catharina Klockner, and shortly after she died in 1766, Ernst married Maria Magdalena Summers. She would later be referred to in both her father's and her husband's will by her Americanized name, Mary.

But we have never known much of anything about Maria Magdalena (MM). We have no records indicating either when/where she was born or when/where she died. We have solely a marriage record in Philadelphia in 1766, and four subsequent baptismal records for 4 of her 8 known children with Ernst. In addition to her own children, she was also step-mother to a daughter from Ernst's previous marriage, as well as several young children from the first wife's previous marriage to Johann Georg Ernst. It's fair to say MM had her hands full.

Now that we think we're zooming in on the Sommer origins as Freistett, Baden, Germany, we've been using old church records from the village to piece together the story. We think we have established that her father, Johann Georg Sommer, married Anna Barbara Ruben in 1745. We have found baptismal records for three children born to them in Freistett, one of which was Maria Magdalena, born 11 Feb 1749. Great! So now we know when MM was born.

But wait.  If MM was born in 1749, she was 17 years old when she married Ernst Menge, who was, according to our best guess, exactly twice that age, 34, at the time of his second marriage. There are plenty of examples of older men marrying younger women, especially during that era.  But still, it seems rather young to me. 

Then I noticed there was another Maria Magdalena Sommer born in Freistett.  She was born 21 Aug 1740, the daughter of Georg's older brother Matthias. So here's that story. Matthias' wife, also named Maria Magdalena, died in 1741, a year after her daughter was born. It's not entirely clear whether or not Matthias remarried. But the idea suddenly comes to me that maybe the girl was adopted by Matthias' brother Georg and his new wife Anna Barbara. Well, maybe!

So now let's try this on for size. If MM was born in 1740, then she was 26 years old when she married. Let's add to that some new evidence we have found in Philadelphia church records. One record in 1762 says that MM was 21 years old and had been in the country for 11 years. The second record in 1763 lists her association with somebody named Mr. Hooks.

What might I conclude from these records? Well, the 1762 record confirms an arrival around 1752, which is when Georg Sommer arrived in PHL. And an age of 21 in 1762, means a birth year of about 1741, a date that is closer to 1740 than 1749! As for the 1763 record, I suspect that MM was a servant, and quite possibly a Redemptioner, meaning that she had to work to pay for her passage to America. Perhaps that obligation kept her from marrying until she was in her mid-twenties.

And what does all this mean for our family story?  For one thing, it could mean that MM was not the daughter of Georg Sommer, but his niece. Certainly he referred to her as a daughter in his will, but I don't think he would refer to her any other way if he adopted her from his brother at an early age.  Our family story would have to be rewritten slightly to say we are descended from Matthias Sommer rather than Johann Georg Sommer. And yet, does changing the family tree change the fact that Maria Magdalena Sommer came to America with Georg and Anna Barbara, and they were her only family?  No, it does not.

We certainly have a long way to go to prove any of this theory, if indeed it can ever be proved at all.  But it's once again amazing to me how our family stories continue to evolve the more we just keep being curious.

Sommer Marriage in Germany

There have been two major questions surrounding the marriage of Johann Georg Sommer.  First is that his wife's name was Anna Barbara Longstreet.  That her name was Anna Barbara, we have no doubt, but we have never found even the slightest clue about the surname Longstreet.  Second, we have debated whether Georg married in America or in Germany.  We think we are coming closer to an answer for both questions.

To address the second question first, we would need to know when Georg arrived in America.  When he died in 1785, his obituary stated he was a member of the congregation for 42 years.  This obituary was among records found for the St. James Lutheran Church in Greenwich, New Jersey.  To be a member for 42 years, would mean he was in America from about 1743.  Unfortunately, we've not been able to find any passenger records for that time that show his arrival.  What we have found is a passenger list for the ship Brothers which arrived in Philadelphia in September, 1752.  On board was Hans Georg Sommer, as well as Johannes Sommer and Hans Martin Sommer, names of younger brothers of our Georg.  So we are leaning toward a 1752 arrival.  Meanwhile we are still trying to locate the actual obituary to see if there might have been a transcription error.  Even if there was not, Georg Sommer might have been a member of a Lutheran congregation that started in Germany.  At this point, this investigation is still open.

But let's just go with the idea that Georg arrived in 1752.  He would have been about 30 years old at the time.  And given that we know his oldest son was born in 1747, this would most certainly suggest that Georg was already married when he arrived.  So we started looking for a marriage in Freistett.  Sure enough, on 19 Jan 1745, Johann Georg Sommer, son of Matthias, married Anna Barbara Ruben.  And sure enough, on 23 Apr 1747 their son Georg Jr. was born.

So, wow.  Georg Sommer WAS married with children when he arrived in America.  And his wife, Anna Barbara, was not originally a Longstreet!  How in the world did the name Longstreet ever get associated with her??  My current theory is that she remarried after Georg died in 1785.  But so far, we've simply not been able to associate the Sommer family with the Longstreet name.  And like so many of our women relations of this early time period, we have no idea whatever became of Anna Barbara from Freistett, Germany.

Some Great Research Tools

I wanted to make mention of a tool that was used to help us in our search for the home village of Hans Georg Sommer.  His obituary said he as born in Freystadt, Elsas.  The people at the international desk at the FHL immediately used the Fuzzy Gazateer:

http://isodp.hof-university.de/fuzzyg/query/

This site helped us investigate which of the matches that came up for Germany was closest to the Alsace region.  Freistett in Baden was a Bingo!

I'd also like to make mention of some tools for helping in the rather daunting task of trying to read old German script.  We had already run into some documents from early Pennsylvania written in German, but now that we're looking at actual German church records, the simple task of reading at times seems next to impossible to me.

So first I want to say I am currently using a great online tutorial for learning German script.  It includes animations for how the letters are formed, downloadable practice pages, and reading tests.  Considering how much I have been struggling with reading the German script, this is a lifesaver for me!

http://script.byu.edu/german/en/welcome.aspx

Assuming one can make out a word written in German script, there is then the job of translation.  The best online reference I've seen is from familysearch:

https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/German_Word_List

So, as always, I deeply appreciate the internet for helping researchers like me.  Without tools such as these, this line of my research would pretty much be over.

Update On Catharina Menge

I had previously posted that Catharina Menge who married Peter Sommer was a sister of our Ernst Menge.  But as our understanding of both the Menge's and the Sommer's has grown, I realize that Catharina was born too late to be a sister of Ernst.  So - ooops!  See how easily mistakes creep into the storyline?  It must happen to everybody doing this work, I think...

So who WAS Catharina Menge, if not a sister?  First we could go back and question whether she was a Menge relation at all, but then I revisit the fact that Catharina named her first child Johann Ernst Sommer and he was sponsored by Ernst Menge and his wife Maria.  There was most definitely a connection.  What I think now is that Catharina was a niece of Ernst Menge, and the daughter of Ernst's older brother Henrich.  From the village genealogy we have of the Menge family in Sodel, Germany, we know that Henrich had a daughter named Anna Catharina who was born in 1751 - which is the exact right age for our Catharina Menge - so she must have made the journey to America as a very small child.  Catharina's father Henrich died in April, 1773, just a month before the birth of her second child.

So there we have it, at least for now.  It's not that this correction represents revised history because after all, the relationships and events of 260+ years ago are not different from what they were.  Rather the story I tell about them is revised based on my ever-deepening understanding of who they really were and how they lived their lives.  As it turns out in this case, the story of Catharina's life as I told it previously does not change greatly because I am realizing she probably had different parents than I thought she did.  It remains that Catharina came from the same family group from the same area of Germany, and her life story continues to give us a wonderful view of the female experience in Philadelphia during Revolutionary times.  Thank goodness.

Sommer Homes

Cousin Janice and I recently returned from a fun-filled week at the Family History Library in SLC.  One of the highlights of our digging was finding the home village for our 6th great-grandfather, Johann Georg Sommer.  Georg most likely came from the village of Freistett in Baden, Germany, just across the river and northeast from Strasbourg.  His parents were Matthias Sommer, an innkeeper, and Anna Barbara Huebster.  Georg had several other siblings, and we think two of his brothers, namely Johannes and Johann Martin, came with him to America.  There is still some question about exactly when Georg came to Philadelphia, and specifically whether he married and had children before he emigrated from Germany or after.  That part is still being researched.

Our second discovery was confirmation of something we already suspected, and that is that Hermann Sommer emigrated to America with five sons, namely Philip, Henry, Martin, Mattias, and Peter.  There has been so much confusing and contradicting information on the internet about this line, but we believe we might have settled it!  We did that by tracing this family to the village of Hoch-Weisel in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany.  A village genealogy we found clearly spells out the family of Hermann Sommer and his wife Anna Elisabetha Anschicks, and their six sons, one of whom remained behind in Germany.  The youngest son, Peter Sommer, would end up marrying (and divorcing) Catharina Menge, thought to be the niece of our Ernst Menge. 

So it appears, at least at this moment in time, that these two Sommer lines are not related except that they both married into the Menge family in America.  This is all very exciting because it gives, finally, a much clearer picture of where these families came from and how their paths crossed in America.

See our article Differentiating Sommer Surnames, which can be found in the library on my research website.