It’s a Small World, the Mennosphere

As I’ve implied all along in this blog, the Mennonite world has been shrinking rapidly for me as I’ve delved ever deeper into my Mennonite roots. This culminated in my recognition that I am related to everyone of Swiss (as opposed to Russian) Mennonite heritage, not only here in Waterloo County, but everywhere in North America. We are all descended from a few handsful of deeply inter-married Mennonite families who immigrated to Pennsylvania from Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

This fact struck me anew, however, just recently.

A Very Useful Map

I thought I should share with you the link to a map that I have found very useful over the past few years: Sam Steiner’s “Mennonite Churches and Amish Districts in Ontario” (I’ve written about Steiner’s wonderful history of Ontario Mennonites elsewhere on this blog).

This map was created with Google My Maps and shows the location of every Mennonite meetinghouse and church and every Amish community in Ontario. The map uses different coloured markers to identify the different Mennonite and Amish conferences. When you click on a marker for a Mennonite meeting place, the conference and street address are listed in the sidebar, along with, in some cases, a photo of the building. Because Amish congregations meet in members’ homes, the marker just shows the general area of the community; the address displayed in the sidebar doesn’t necessarily refer to a meeting place.

I have used this map extensively in my research for this blog. I’ve also used it to identify which sect the people belong to when I run across a meetinghouse or community while I’m traveling around Ontario.

You can interact with the embedded map below, or you can open it in a separate window by clicking the “expand” icon in the top right corner of the map below or by clicking here. I would suggest you save the bookmark, as I have, for quick and easy reference.

Visiting the Pennsylvania Ancestors

My partner, Sande, and I have just returned from a two-week journey around the northeastern United States. Part of that trip was a day spent wandering about Lancaster County visiting sites associated with many of the ancestors that I’ve written about in this blog.

It was quite moving to tour the 1719 Christian (and Hans?) Herr house in Willow Street (guided by a lovely woman who, I discovered, is related to me in at least two ways), to see the Christian and Elizabeth Eby homestead northeast of Lititz, and finally to visit the graves of David Martin and his wives Anna Groff and Elizabeth Herr in the Weberthal cemetery in Weaverland, among other things. It makes all of the abstract history and genealogies a lot more real to me, more grounded in place and time.

I have already written about that day on our travel blog, Travels without Pinot, so I’m not going to write it all over again here. Instead, I’ll simply give you a link to that post, and, if you’re interested enough, you can check it out: “Visiting the Ancestors.” (Apologies to those of you who follow both of these blogs.)

As a teaser, here’s a photo of me at the old Tschantz Graveyard in Lampeter township, where my ancestors Wendell S Bauman and his wife Anna Herr (sister of Christian Herr and daughter of Hans) are buried:

Me and Jim Beam

I have written previously (in “Oberholtzers: The Whiskey Connection”) about my Oberholtzer ancestors and their relationship to the Overholt whiskey distillers (I just revised that post with more detailed information about that relationship, so you might want to check it out). But the same article that put me on to that whiskey connection also suggested that Jim Beam (of Kentucky bourbon fame) is also descended from a Mennonite family, the Boehms.

Now, my friend Murray Martin has forwarded me information about how I’m related to Jim Beam, as well. This story goes back to our old Ur-ancestor, Jeorg Kündig (or Kendig). I am descended from two of Jeorg’s children through many lines—indeed, the Kündigs are tied into almost every one of my ancestral families, in multiple ways. Jim Beam is descended from another of Jeorg’s children, Hans Jacob, who was the eldest child of Barbara Huffleberg.

I won’t go through my many lines of descent from old Jeorg, but I show the Hans Heinrich lines down to my grandparents in the following diagram, with Jim Beam’s line of descent on the left. It appears that my closest relationship to Jim Beam is seventh cousin three times removed (the Eva Weber-John Brubacher line through my grandfather Peter):

Click to view a larger image in a new tab.

In Jim Beam’s line, it was Martin Mylin Kündig who immigrated with his wife and children from the German Palatinate to Lancaster County. In 1710, he and my ancestor Wendel Bauman, along with Martin Mylin, Hans and Christian Herr, Hans Funk, and others, purchased 10,000 acres in the Pequea Creek area, just south of Lancaster. Old Heinrich Weber moved to the area in 1717 and married into the Kündig family, before moving to the Weaverland area in 1724 (where he settled next door to his brother-in-law, my ancestor David Martin).

Anyway, Martin and Elizabeth’s daughter Barbara married Johan Jacob Boehm (pronounced “Beam”) a few years after immigrating. Boehm was also a recent immigrant from the Palatinate. It was their grandson, Johannes Jacob Beam, who around 1790 moved to Washington County, Kentucky, southeast of Bardstown (the epicenter of Kentucky bourbon distilling), changed the spelling of the family name, established a farm where he grew corn, and started making corn whiskey. He sold his first Old Jake Beam’s Sour Mash bourbon in 1795 (customers had to bring their own jugs).

Two generations later, David M Beam Jr moved the business to Nelson County, to take advantage of better rail connections. In 1880, they started bottling and selling their bourbon nationally under the name “Old Tub.” James Beauregard “Jim” Beam managed the distillery until Prohibition (when, some accounts claim, angry crowds burned it all down), then in 1933-34 rebuilt the business in Clermont, Kentucky, not far from Bardstown. In 1943, the brand name was changed to Jim Beam, and the labels on the bottles bore Jim’s signature.

When I visited the distillery in Clermont in 2016, I didn’t see any plain dress or horse-drawn buggies around, so I’m guessing there’s no longer much connection to the old Menno heritage. But then you wouldn’t expect it, I suppose, since the operation is now owned by the Japanese Suntory group.

Here are a few photos from our visit to the distillery with our friends Bob and Barb.

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  Walking toward the still-house with Bob

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  Bob and I with the James Beauregarde “Jim” Beam statue

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  In the gift shop (Barb to my left in the white shirt)

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  One of the barrel warehouses

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  An old bus with Jim’s signature on the front

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Oberholtzers: The Whiskey Connection

I have two ancestors who immigrated to Waterloo Township whose mothers’ maiden names were Oberholtzer, as well as one who was a grandson of one of those women. I didn’t think about these Oberholtzer grandmothers much until Murray Martin (my third cousin once removed and fellow genealogy nut) sent me an online article with the intriguing title “Why the Matron Saint of American Whiskey Should be Mary Hope.”

That essay discusses two Mennonite families, the Boehms and the Oberholtzers, who arrived in Pennsylvania in 1710 on the good ship Mary Hope. A descendant of the Boehm family, Jacob Beam, moved to Kentucky in 1788, where he founded “the dynasty that defines the nature of Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey to this very day”: Jim Beam. Two brothers, Abraham and Christian Overholt, descendants of the Oberholtzer family, founded the distillery in Westmoreland County, PA, that “eventually became the home of Old Overholt Rye Whiskey.” Overholt & Co is now a subsidiary of the Beam-Suntory group (and it was actually Abraham and Christian’s father who started distilling whiskey).

The author suggests that it was Mennonite families, such as the Boehms and Oberholtzers, immigrants from the German Palatinate and before that from Switzerland, who brought the skills and recipes that eventually produced the quintessential American whiskey, bourbon. It is probably not a coincidence that Waterloo, Ontario, also became a centre of whiskey distilling, with the little distillery established by the Snider family in conjunction with the mills they bought from Abe Erb eventually evolving into Seagrams, the producer of great Canadian rye whiskies. (Maybe it’s also not a coincidence that I have such a taste for whiskies of all sorts.)

Just recently, I received another email from Murray Martin, in which he sent me more detailed information about the relationship between my Oberholtzer ancestors—Elizabeth Oberholtzer Bauman and Maria Oberholtzer Martin— and Abraham and Christian Overholt of whisky fame. Elizabeth and Maria were first cousins, and they were third cousins once removed of Abraham and Christian.

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The Oberholtzer family can be traced back to Wald in the Canton of Zürich, Switzerland, and one Mattheus Oberholtzer (1561–1644) and his wife Anneli Streler (1566-1608). Their son Martin Oberholtzer (1595–1644) married Margaretha Schollenberger (1606–1650).

Martin and Margaretha had seven children. Two of their sons are relevant to this story: Hans Jacob (1620-1683) is my ancestor through Elizabeth and Maria, while his brother Marx Oberholtzer (1634-1680) was the ancestor of the whiskey Overholts.

The Whiskey Line:

Marx Oberholtzer (Marcus maybe?) was born in Wald in 1634 and married Anna Margaretha Dobler (1639-1670). Their son Marcus Oberholtzer (1664 to 1724) and his wife Elizabeth Ely (1654-173) emigrated to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1710. Their son Martin (1709-1744) married Agnes Kolb (1713-1786) in Pennsylvania.

Martin and Agnes’s son Heinrich (1739-1813) was married to Anna Beidler (1745-1835). It appears that it was he who moved from Bucks to Westmoreland County, changed the name to Overholt, and began distilling rye whiskey on his farm “for medicinal purposes.” The story is that it was Henry and Anna’s son Abraham (1784-1870) who convinced his dad that they should sell the whiskey commercially. The Mennonite church wasn’t happy about this, but they went ahead with it, and Overholt’s Old Farm Whiskey became a great success.

When Henry died, Abraham and his brother Christian (1786-1868) inherited the business. Eventually, Abraham bought out Christian’s share and took his sons Jacob and Henry into the business, which was renamed Abraham Overholt & Company.

My Ancestors:

Hans Jacob Oberholtzer married Anna Buchmann (1626–1689) in Wald, but at some time they emigrated to Sinsheim, Kraichgau, in the German Palatinate, where they both died. Hans Jacob and Anna’s son Johannes (1651-1704) married Anna Frey. Four of Johannes’ and Anna’s children emigrated to Pennsylvania; the two sons—Samuel and Jacob—are my ancestors.

Samuel Frey Oberholtzer was born in Immelhausenhof, Sinsheim, in 1684 and married Elizabeth Brumbach. They died in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1748 and 1758, respectively. Their daughter Elizabeth (1724–1791) married Christian Bauman (1724–1790) about 1744; Elizabeth and Christian’s sons Wendel and Joseph are both ancestors of mine.

• Wendel Oberholtzer Bauman (1758-1842) married Maria Huber (1760–1816) in 1784. Their son Joseph H Bauman (1796-1864) immigrated to Waterloo Township in 1819, settled northwest of Waterloo, and married Elizabeth Hoffman (1804-1879). They are ancestors of grandmother Lovina through their daughter Barbara.

• Joseph Oberholtzer Bauman (1766–1849) emigrated to Waterloo Township with his wife Mary Baer in 1816. They settled just west of where the village of Blair now stands, and they’re buried in the Old Blair Cemetery. They are ancestors of grandmother Lovina through their daughters Salome and Mary.

Jacob Frey Oberholtzer was born in 1704 in Germany, married Barbara Killheffer (details unknown), and died in 1755 in Brecknock, Berks County, PA. Their daughter Maria (1750 – 1816) married Abraham Groff Martin (1748-1815) in 1770 in Lancaster County. Abraham and Maria’s son David O Martin (1771–1854) emigrated to Waterloo Township in 1820 with his wife Maria Guth, who died that year. Four of David and Maria’s children—Jacob, Christian, Catherine, and Peter—are ancestors of my three Martin grandparents in five different ways.

Sadly, none of my lines got into distilling, or at least not in a big enough way to show up in the history books. The closest they came was that Mary Bauman Schneider’s brother-in-law, Jacob C Snider, bought the Waterloo grist mills from Abe Erb and established a distillery on the site. So one could argue (quite unconvincingly) that I have a distant connection to what became the Seagram’s distillery.

Here’s the picture (with the immigrant Waterloo pioneers in red font):

Click the image to see a larger version in a new tab.

River Brethren / Tunkers / Be in Christ

The church formerly known as the River Brethren or Tunkers (or Dunkers), later as Brethren in Christ, and now as Be in Christ, has its roots in Mennonite, German Radical Pietist, and Wesleyan holiness traditions. They combine Mennonite notions of non-resistance and non-conformity; Pietist adherence to immersion baptism, a fervent devotional life, and evangelism; and Wesleyan focus on crisis conversion (the New Birth), assurance of salvation, and the so-called “second work of grace.”

The history of this church begins with a revival meeting held on a farm near the Susquehanna River west of Lancaster PA in 1767. One of the speakers at the meeting was Martin Boehm (1725–1812), a Mennonite minister who had previously had a dramatic conversion experience. In attendance was a Reformed pastor from York named Philip William Otterbein (1726–1813), who was moved by Boehm’s testimony to rise from his seat, embrace the preacher, and pronounce “Wir sind Brüder [We are brethren]!”

It seems that the revival amongst the Germans in that area extended into the 1770s, led mainly by Otterbein, Boehm, and John and Jacob Engel. Those who were converted (including Mennonites, German Baptists, and members of other reformed, non-conformist, and pietistic churches) formed a loose movement who met in homes, generally believed in adult baptism, crisis conversion, and a pietistic life, and informally called themselves the Brethren.

Fairly soon, there was disagreement about what form baptism should take. The Mennonites, of course, were used to pouring, while some of the other Pennsylvania German converts were more familiar with sprinkling or the so-called trine immersion, in which the convert is fully immersed three times. A minority, generally associated with the Engel brothers, felt strongly that trine immersion was the only biblical method, while the majority thought the candidate for baptism should choose which method they wished to undergo.

Sometime before 1780, the trine immersion group (mostly former Mennonites, apparently) separated themselves from the others, though they maintained friendly relations and all continued to call themselves Brethren (Wir sind Brüder!). Led by Jacob Engel, this group decided to baptise each other in Convoy Creek, which ran past Engel’s farm near Marietta and the Susquehanna River (an act reminiscent of those early Anabaptist leaders in Zurich, Georg Blaurock, Conrad Grebel, and Felix Manz).

Perhaps because of their location near the Susquehanna or because of their river baptisms, this group came to be known as the River Brethren or, more informally, the Dunkers. (The remainder of the Brethren, led by Boehm and Otterbein, went on to become a church known as the United Brethren in Christ. More on them at the end of this post.)

It seems that River Brethren arrived in Canada at the same time as the first Mennonites, settling first in the Niagara Peninsula in the 1780s. Soon they became known as Tunkers (from the German word for “to dip”). Sam Steiner writes that Samuel Betzner Sr—who was one of the very first settlers in Block 2, arriving in the summer of 1800—was a Tunker. It is quite likely that the first worship service held in the area along the Grand River was a Tunker service led by Betzner, since he is known to have held services in his own home for many years (although it isn’t known whether he was an ordained minister). The Brethren in Christ presence in Waterloo County was thus simultaneous with Mennonite settlement.

Until about 1820, the River Brethren were really an association of like-minded congregations, but growing numbers (now dispersed across a number of states and into Ontario) led them to create a more formal ecclesiastical organization. Similar to the Mennonite church, this organization included the local churches and a system of district councils, state councils, and a general conference. Church officers included self-supporting bishops, ministers, and deacons (mostly farmers) who were elected by the congregations. They did not accept any historical creeds or confessions, but stressed the authority of the Bible and the active guidance of the Holy Spirit.

There were several splits in the River Brethren church in the decades after 1820. In 1838, a small group in Ohio, led by John Wenger, joined up with a group of former United Brethren under the leadership of John Swank. A few decades later, Swank and a small faction left the Wenger group and eventually joined up with Daniel Brenneman’s Evangelical United Mennonites (the “New Mennonites” of 1850s Waterloo County) to form the Mennonite Brethren in Christ (later, the Missionary Church and, in Canada, the Evangelical Missionary Church). The remnant of the Wenger group eventually became the Pentecostal Brethren in Christ, which, in 1924, became part of the Pilgrim Holiness Church.

In 1843, a small group in Pennsylvania separated in order to use a church building (meeting house) rather than worshiping in homes; they adopted the name United Zion’s Children (and later the United Zion Church). A decade later, in 1853, another group broke away over what they saw as lax church discipline; they called themselves the Old Order River Brethren (sometimes referred to as Yorkers).

With the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, the main body of River Brethren realized that, in order to avoid conscription, they needed legal recognition as a religious organization that upheld the (Anabaptist) doctrine of non-resistance. At a council held in Lancaster in 1862, church leaders set in motion the steps to register the church legally and decided to replace the informal name “River Brethren” with “Brethren in Christ.” The church was finally incorporated under this name in 1904, with headquarters in Harrisburg, PA.

As with the Mennonites, the Brethren in Christ gradually adopted church buildings and full-time ministers supported by the congregation. Church boards were established to direct and oversee such functions as education, publications, and charitable and missionary endeavors. Several colleges, academies, high schools, children’s homes, retirement homes, and camp/retreat centres were established in various American states and in Ontario.

During the 20th century, the Brethren in Christ church became more ecumenical, participating in various Evangelical organizations and working increasingly with the Mennonite General Conference and the Mennonite Central Committee, while retaining their distinctive Wesleyan holiness theology and practices. They put a very high priority on evangelism and mission work, both domestic and foreign.

In 2012, the North American Brethren in Christ separated into two conferences, one for Canada and one for the USA. In 2017, Brethren in Christ Canada changed its name to the Be in Christ Church of Canada, to better reflect their “inclusive and egalitarian values,” according to their website.

Today there are dozens of Be in Christ churches across Canada, including five congregations in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, two of them meeting in local cinemas.

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Meanwhile, the faction led by Boehm and Otterbein after the original split back in 1780 soon spread from Pennsylvania into Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio. In 1800, thirteen ministers assembled for their first conference in Frederick, Maryland. There, they adopted the name the United Brethren in Christ and elected Otterbein and Boehm as their first bishops. In 1815, the church adopted a new Confession of Faith, which was revised in 1842.

The origins of the United Brethren in Christ church in Canada are interesting and local. It seems that Jacob Erb, a grandson of old Christian and Maria Erb, arrived in Waterloo County from Pennsylvania around 1825, moved to New York state in 1837, and eventually became a United Brethren in Christ minister. In 1854, while visiting relatives in Preston, Erb met with John Cornell, an unattached itinerant revivalist from Sheffield, Ontario, who had started a number of congregations in Upper Canada, including at least one in Waterloo County. As a result of the discussions between Erb and Cornell, all of the latter’s congregations joined the United Brethren in Christ in October of that year.

There was another major split in the church in 1889 over a number of issues. In both the United States and Canada, the more conservative factions carried on with the name United Brethren in Christ, while the more liberal factions eventually merged with other churches and took on new names (the Canadian faction eventually became part of the United Church of Canada). The current United Brethren in Christ churches do not seem to include non-resistance as an important principle, nor do they advertise any formal relationships with Mennonite or other Peace churches.

There are three United Brethren in Christ churches in Waterloo Region—in Kitchener, Cambridge, and Roseville—and thirteen across southern Ontario.

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Sources:

“History,” Be In Christ Church Canada (https://beinchrist.ca/history/).

Bender, Harold S. and Richard D. Thiessen. “Church of the United Brethren in Christ.” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. February 2012. Web. 11 Jan 2023. (https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Church_of_the_United_Brethren_in_Christ&oldid=136537).

Bender, Harold S. and Richard D. Thiessen. “Mennonite Brethren in Christ.” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. May 2013. Web. 11 Jan 2023. (https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Mennonite_Brethren_in_Christ&oldid=145868).

“Brethren in Christ Church,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brethren_in_Christ_Church).

“Church of the United Brethren in Christ,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_United_Brethren_in_Christ).

Hostetter, C. Nelson, E. Morris Sider and Samuel J. Steiner. “Brethren in Christ Church.” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. September 2018. Web. 10 Jan 2023. (https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Brethren_in_Christ_Church&oldid=165954).

Steiner, Samuel J. “Betzner, Samuel (1738-1813).” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. March 2009. Web. 11 Jan 2023. (https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Betzner,_Samuel_(1738-1813)&oldid=172421).

“UB Church History,” The United Brethren Church in Canada (http://www.ubcanada.org/ub-church-history/).

How Inbred am I?

About a year ago, my brother Rod got interested in (concerned about?) how much inbreeding there has been in our family background.

He used ezraeby.com to check the relationships between our parents (both born Martin), and discovered that they are related in at least 10 ways in the last eight generations: once as third cousins, four ways third cousins once removed, four ways fourth cousins, and once as fourth cousins once removed.

My maternal grandparents, again both Martins, are related to each other in eight ways, including second cousin once removed (two ways), third cousin (one way), fifth cousin once removed (three ways), and fifth half-cousin once and twice removed (two ways). My paternal grandparents aren’t related to each other at all, since my grandmother’s ancestors were not from the Mennonite community. My paternal grandfather’s parents, however, were related in four ways: second cousins (two ways), third cousin three times removed (one way), and fourth cousin twice removed (one way).

These numerous relationships aren’t too surprising if you remember the family trees that I created over the past few years. My three Mennonite grandparents are related not only through the Martin lines, but through the Baumans, Webers, Brubachers, and a few others. It certainly looks like a dangerous amount of inbreeding.

To check that out, Rod downloaded a program called PedScope (which was originally intended for tracking pedigree in animals, like show dogs and prize bulls) and entered all of our genealogical data going back 8 or 9 generations. With that data entered, the program can calculate how any two individuals are genetically related (as a percentage of shared DNA), as well as quantify the amount of inbreeding in any individual (as a percentage called the Coefficient of Inbreeding).

It turns out that I share way more DNA with some of my ancestors than would be expected, because I am descended from them in multiple ways. For example, I share 9.2% of my DNA with the old pioneer David Martin, from whom I am descended in five different ways; if I were descended from him in only one way, only 3.1% of my DNA would come from him. A similar proportion of my DNA would come from David’s wife Maria Good, and just a bit less from Henry H Bauman and from his wife Maria Mosser (from whom I am descended in 4 different ways). This means that I have much less genetic diversity than would a person whose ancestors were not related to each other in any way.

Which brings us to the Coefficient of Inbreeding. A person whose parents are unrelated to each other in any way has a COI of 0.0%. That’s where my father is at, because his mother came from non-Mennonite parents and was not related to his father. My mother, on the other hand, has a COI of 2.0%, and her father has a COI of 3.1%. My father’s father has a COI of 3.6%, the highest of any of our ancestors that we have data for.

A COI of greater than 5.0% is considered problematical, indicating too limited a genetic pool, too much inbreeding, and probably genetic defects. I have a COI of only 1.7% (whew!). This is thanks primarily to the fact that our paternal grandmother wasn’t related to anybody else. And none of my ancestors married anyone more closely related than first cousin once removed (my maternal grandfather’s father was married to his first cousin’s daughter); in most cases, they were second or third or more distant cousins, so there was at least some genetic diversity introduced in every generation.

So, despite the many ways in which my ancestors are related to each other, and the multiple ways in which I am descended from some of those ancestors, I am nowhere near the level of inbreeding that would be considered genetically problematic.

In fact, I have long thought of myself as being much like a thoroughbred horse, in whom certain desirable characteristics have been sharpened and heightened through careful breeding. Remember, I’m descended from old David Martin in five ways, with three times as much of his DNA as might be expected, and his descendants have long been recognized for their big brains.

Thankfully, I don’t have the big feet that I might have inherited from David’s cousin Peter, but then I’m descended from him in only one way. I wonder where my wry sense of humour comes from.

Jeorg Kündig: Ur-Ancestor

My brother Rod has been getting into some genealogical research that’s a bit different than mine. Last year, he downloaded all of the data from the ezraeby.com database, and he has been writing programs to do all sorts of interesting statistical analysis of our genealogical/genetic heritage.

Most recently, he discovered a couple who lived in Switzerland in the 17th century and who show up as common ancestors in almost every relationship he looks at, although their names have completely disappeared from Waterloo County. Rod calls Jeorg Kündig¹ and Barbara (or Barbel) Huffelberg “the most important pair of Mennonite ancestors that nobody has ever heard of.”

Now, on looking into this family myself, I have discovered that there are (perhaps) some errors and omissions in the ezraeby.com story and (definitely) a lot of confusion in the various genealogical sources, especially with regard to the first few generations. Here’s a tentative account of the many ways that I count myself a Kündig (generations are numbered):

I Jeorg Kündig was born on January 22, 1598, in Auslikon, Pfäffikon, Zürich, Switzerland, to Peter Kuendig and Ursula Müller. All sources outside Ezra Eby suggest he married a woman named Anna Meyer (born 21 August 1607) around 1625. Anna died in 1634, and Jeorg married Barbara Huffelberg on January 1, 1635. Jeorg died in 1650 and Barbara died in 1652. It appears that Anna probably bore two children and Barbara three, though the accounts differ widely. Two of Jeorg’s children are ancestors of mine for sure.²

II John/Jagli/Jacob Kündig was born to Jeorg and Anna in Auslikon and married Jane (or maybe Elsbeth) Mylin (Mieli). Their daughter Elizabeth is an ancestor of mine.

III Elizabeth Kündig married Hans Herr (1639-1725) in 1660 in Zurich.³ By 1671, they were living in the Württemberg area in the German Palatinate. At some point, Hans was ordained a minister, then a bishop, in the Mennonite church. In 1710 or 1717, Hans and Elisabeth emigrated to Conestoga Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (they are buried in the Willow Street Mennonite Church Cemetery, Lancaster County).⁴ Three of their children are ancestors:

• IV Abraham Herr married Anna Baer, and their daughter V Barbara married the old pioneer David Martin as his second wife. David and Barbara’s son VI Heinrich married Mary Burkhart, and their son VII Peter emigrated to Waterloo County in 1819. Peter and his wife Anna Zimmerman are ancestors of my grandmother Lovina.
• IV Maria Margaretha Herr married John Anton Weber. They emigrated to America to become progenitors of the North American Mennonite Webers. Their daughter V Anna was David Martin‘s first first wife; she died at sea on the voyage to Pennsylvania. Their son V Heinrich married his second-cousin-once-removed IV Magdalena Kendig. Four of their grandchildren are ancestors of mine, the three granddaughters marrying a Brubacher, a Sherk, and a Mosser, thus introducing fresh names into the mix.
• IV Anna Herr married Wendell S Baumann, another pioneer Mennonite in Pennsylvania.⁵ Two of their great-grandchildren, VI Wendel O and VI Joseph O Bauman (or Bowman) are ancestors of grandmother Lovina in several ways. Joseph O and his wife Mary Baer were early settlers in Waterloo County, farming just west of the village of Blair. A great-great-grandson, Henry H Bauman, married a distant cousin, Maria Mosser; they settled east of Heidelberg, and are ancestors of all three of my grandparents (note that the connection between Henry H and his antecedents is not shown on the diagram).

II Hans Heinrich Kündig was born to Jeorg and Barbara on 6 June 1641 in Pfäffikon, Zürich, Switzerland, and married Dorothea Scherrer on 30 March 1663. They had seven children, some of whom may have died in infancy. Dorothea died in 1680 in Switzerland, and Hans Heinrich married Barbel Weynner later that same year. They had six children. Barbel died around 1707 in Switzerland. At some point, Hans Heinrich emigrated to Pennsylvania, where he died in June 1725.

III Hans Jacob Kündig was born to Hans Heinrich and Dorothea on 2 July 1671 and married Susannah Wymann in Dübendorf, Zürich, Switzerland, on 24 April 1703. They had 13 children, several of whom died in infancy. Susannah herself died during childbirth in 1714. Hans Jacob and several of his children emigrated to Pennsylvania (perhaps in 1717), where he died on 28 November 1735 in Strasburg, Lancaster County.

IV Magdalena Maudlin Kendig, born in 1703, the eldest child of Hans Jacob and Susannah, emigrated to Pennsylvania (probably with her father) and married her relative Heinrich Weber, as mentioned above. One of their grandchildren, four of their great-grandchildren, and several of their great-great-grandchildren emigrated to Canada. Heinrich and Magdalena are ancestors of all three of my grandparents, each in at least two different ways.

As you can see, the Kündig-Meyer-Huffelberg family tree incorporates at least parts of almost all of the other family trees I have looked at and written about: Martins, Webers, Baumans, Brubachers, Schneiders, Wanners, and Mossers. The Burkharts and Oberholtzers make appearances, and even the mysterious Louis Beeshy and Arnold Strycker are in there. Fifteen of my 32 great-great-great-grandparents are Kündig/Huffelberg descendants.

According to Rod, almost 90% of the Martins, Webers, Baumans, and Brubachers (the most common names in the ezraeby.com database) are direct descendants of this couple. About a quarter of all individuals in the database, with more than 3,700 different last names, descend from the Kündig-Meyer-Hufflebergs in one way or another. But there are only 2 Kündigs, 8 Kendigs, and 1 Huffleberg in the database, not one born after 1703. (On the other hand, there are still thousands of Kendigs in the USA.)

Who knew?

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Notes:

¹ ezraeby.com spells the name “Kendig,” the anglicised form that was generally adopted when family members came to America. I have chosen to use the German form that Jeorg probably would have recognized.

² There is a lot of confusion about Jeorg Kündig’s children, how many there were and who their mothers were. For example, FamilySearch and other sources list a child named Hans Jagli, born in 1619 or 1630 to Anna, and another named Johan Jagli, born 1636 to Barbara. Since Hans and Johan are the same name (John in English) and many of the details (including spouse names) are the same for both children, I am thinking this is probably one child, but I’m not sure whose child it is.

³ There is a lot of confusion about who was married to Bishop Hans Herr. The ezraeby.com database and other sources—such as Jane Evans Best in “Martin Kendig’s Swiss Relatives,” Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 15 (January 1992)—suggest that it was Elisabeth Kendig, daughter of Jeorg and Barbara, who married Herr. Other sources, including FamilySearch, say that Elizabeth was the daughter of either Hans Jacob or Hans Jagli (Jeorg and Anna’s sons) and Elizabeth Mylin. Tim Dowling’s Family Tree on geneanet.org suggests that Hans Herr married Barbara Kendig, daughter of John Kendig and Jane Mylin (children Abraham and Maria Margarethe) in 1660, then sometime around 1673 married Elizabeth, daughter of Jeorg and Barbara Huffleberg Kendig (children Christian, John, Isaac, and Emanuel). I’m not sure where he gets this notion.

⁴ Many sources say that Bishop Hans Herr and Elisabeth Kündig Herr were part of the large group of Mennonites from the Palatinate who together purchased 10,000 acres in the Pequea area of Lancaster County from William Penn in 1710. That group included Christian Herr and John Herr (Hans and Elisabeth’s sons), Wendell S and Anna Herr Baumann (Hans and Elizabeth’s daughter and son-in-law), Elisabeth’s brother Martin Kündig (who was married to Bishop Hans’s sister Elizabeth), and Martin Mylin (or Maili), Elisabeth Herr’s cousin. A more credible argument suggest that it was Hans and Elisabeth’s son Hans who was part of that 1710 group, and that Hans and Elisabeth emigrated later, in 1717, with other members of their family, including their grandson Heinrich Weber and his wife (and distant cousin) Magdalena Kündig. No matter which version is correct, there can be no doubt that, from the beginning, the first Mennonite settlement in Lancaster County was dominated by the extended Kündig family.

5 FamilySearch and Ancestry.com suggest that Wendell S Baumann’s wife Anna was a daughter of Bishop Hans Herr and Elisabeth Kündig, but Geni.com and many other sources do not list an Anna as a child of the Herrs. Geni suggests that Anna Baumann’s maiden name was “Kendig,” but does not list her parents’ names. So there is a possibility that our Baumann ancestors are not descendants of the Herrs and perhaps not even part of the Kündig clan at all.

Isaiah S Bowman: noted geographer and anti-semite

Last week, my friend (and distant cousin) Roger Baer sent me an article about a guy named Isaiah S Bowman from the Nov 15, 1975, Kitchener-Waterloo Record. He wanted to know whether this Isaiah was related to his (Roger’s) ancestor, Preacher Moses Bowman of Mannheim.

Now Isaiah S Bowman was a pretty important guy, one of the most influential geographers of his time. He was born in Wilmot Township on December 26, 1878, to Samuel C Bowman and Emily Shantz. Preacher Moses Bowman was indeed his grandfather, so he is a first cousin twice removed of my friend Roger.

When he was only a few months old, Isaiah’s family moved to Brown City, Michigan, about 40 miles northwest of Port Huron, and he became an American citizen in 1900, when he was 22. There is a Missionary Church in Brown City that was founded in 1885 and a Missionary camp nearby, so I am guessing that maybe Samuel C Bowman was a follower of the “New” Mennonite preachers Daniel Brenneman and Solomon Eby.

At age 18, Bowman started teaching at a rural school in Michigan, but he was soon offered a post at Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) in Ypsilanti, on condition he study at an eastern university. He entered Harvard, where he studied under prominent geographer William M. Davis and graduated with a BA in 1905. He was immediately offered a position at Yale, where he taught and did graduate work, including three research expeditions to South America, in 1907, 1911, and 1913. He earned his PhD in 1909 with a dissertation (“The Physiography of the Central Andes”) based on his South American research.

Bowman taught at Yale until 1915, when he was appointed director of the American Geographical Society, which he completely reorganized and revitalized. When the USA entered the first world war in 1917, Bowman, as director of the AGS, was asked to assemble a team to prepare data for use in the peace conference that would be held when fighting ceased.

In December 1918, he went to France as the Chief Territorial Specialist in the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He quickly became a key advisor to President Woodrow Wilson and his chief advisor Edward House. In this capacity, he played an important role in the distribution of lands amongst the various combatants and the definition of boundaries in Europe, particularly the Balkan states.

During the war years, Bowman served as associate editor of the Geographical Review and the Journal of Geography. In 1921, he was appointed a director of the new Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), an American non-profit think-tank that specializes in foreign policy and international affairs. During the second world war, he was chair of the “territorial” section of the CFR’s War and Peace Studies project, and he served as a CFR vice-president from 1945 to 1949.

During the depression of the 1930s, Bowman served as chairman of the National Research Council in Washington. He also helped to organize the Science Advisory Board, which President Franklin D Roosevelt created (at Bowman’s suggestion) to advise all government departments on scientific issues. He served as vice chair of that Board. In 1931, he was elected president of the International Geographical Congress; he also served as president of the Association of American Geographers at this time.

Bowman was appointed President of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1935. During the early years of his tenure, he focused on getting Johns Hopkins onto a firm financial footing after the depredations of the depression. He was also instrumental in consolidating isolated areas of study into stronger departments. At the same time, he wrote and lectured on the role of the university and graduate schools in modern democratic societies. He was president of Johns Hopkins until 1948.

During the second world war, Bowman was appointed a State Department advisor to President Roosevelt. At Roosevelt’s request, he led a search for a refuge for Jewish emigrants from Europe as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism. But Bowman was himself an anti-Semite, thinking that Jews were a “threat to American culture,” so his team never considered the USA as a potential haven.

Bowman spearheaded the creation of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins in 1942. Researchers at the APL developed the “proximity fuse,” which allowed bombs to explode before actually hitting their targets, thus increasing their “lethality” by a factor of 5 or 10.

In 1944 and 1945, as a State Department advisor, Bowman participated in the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC, and the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco; he was thus involved in the establishment of the United Nations.

In 1945, Bowman established a quota system that limited the number of Jewish scholars and students admitted to Johns Hopkins, at a time when most American universities were dismantling such schemes.

After the war, Bowman tried to revitalize the study of geography at Johns Hopkins by establishing the Isaiah Bowman School of Geography, but the school was never able to attract the high-profile scholars required to sustain it. After Bowman’s retirement from the presidency in 1948, the school was downgraded to departmental status, and in 1968 his name was removed from the department.

Bowman authored 14 books and more than 175 academic articles and papers, on a wide range of topics. He received 13 honorary degrees, nine honorary fellowships, and six medals from American, Canadian, and Peruvian universities. Bowman Bay on Baffin Island and Bowman Coast, Bowman Island, and Bowman Glacier in Antarctica were named for him by the explorers Putnam, Wilkins, Mawson, and Byrd. He is a member of the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame.

Bowman married Cora Olive Goldthwaite of Lynn, Massachusetts, on June 28, 1909, when he was still a graduate student at Yale. They had three children. It isn’t clear whether they retained any church connections.

Dr Isaiah S Bowman died on January 6, 1950, in Baltimore, Maryland.

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Like pretty much every person of Swiss Mennonite ancestry born in Waterloo County, Isaiah Bowman is a relative of mine—in a number of ways.

Through the Bowman/Bauman lineage, he is my great-grandmother Leah Snyder’s third cousin—her paternal grandmother, Barbara Bauman, was a first cousin to Moses Bowman. He is also Leah’s fourth cousin in several ways, if you go back a generation in the Bowman/Bauman family. And, if you go back yet another generation, he is a fifth cousin of my grandfather Peter B Martin.

But that’s not all, Isaiah’s great-grandmother (Preacher Moses’ mother) was Susannah Bechtel, sister of my ancestors Mary and Veronica Bechtel. This makes him a third cousin to both my paternal great-grandfather Isaiah Martin and my maternal great-grandfather John W Martin.

I suppose there are some who would think his anti-Semitism should disqualify Isaiah Bowman from any honour (or even consideration) whatsoever. But in humble Anabaptist spirit, I will leave that sort of judgement to the self-righteous.

Yes, he had his faults, just like all of us, and his faults were pretty glaring indeed. (I would, in fact, list his involvement in the settling of borders after WWI, at the Paris Peace Conference, right up there with the worst of his sins.) But he did some amazing and important things, especially for a Mennonite kid born on a farm near Mannheim.

While I’m appalled at some of his beliefs and actions, I also have to respect his achievements. That puts him slightly above my purported relatives General George Custer and president Andrew Johnson, for whom I have no respect at all.

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The following diagram shows how Roger Baer and I (in red font) are related to Isaiah Bowman and to each other (click on the diagram to view a larger image):

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Sources:

Ernie Ronnenberg, “Geographer Isaiah Bowman Adviser to Two US Presidents,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, Nov 15, 1975.

John K Wright and George F Carter, Isaiah Bowman 1878-1959: A Biographical Memoir (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1959), http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/bowman-isaiah.pdf.

“Isaiah Bowman,” Waterloo Generations (https://generations.regionofwaterloo.ca/getperson.php?personID=I6886&tree=generations), accessed Jan 3, 2022.

“Isaiah Bowman,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Bowman), accessed Jan 3, 2022.

“Isaiah Bowman,” YourDictionary (https://biography.yourdictionary.com/isaiah-bowman), accessed Jan 3, 2022.

“Isaiah Bowman: American geographer and educator,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaiah-Bowman), accessed Jan 3, 2022.

Where the Ancestors are Buried

The following table lists the cemeteries in which the immigrant ancestors who I have discussed on this website are buried. Generally, cemeteries are listed from south to north in the county, which is also generally older to newer cemeteries and earlier to later immigrants/settlers.

If you’d like to visit any of these cemeteries and find the graves of your ancestors, you might use my handy interactive map, which has all of the cemeteries marked (with cross icons) and lists the ancestors buried in each. You can even use that map on your smart phone to get directions from where you are to the cemetery in question: after clicking on a cemetery icon, click on the arrow icon next to the cemetery name in the description pane.

Cemetery	Ancestors Buried
Hagey’s, Preston	Joseph and Magdalena (Allebach) Bechtel
Doon Presbyterian	Christian and Elizabeth (Erb) Schneider
Old Blair Memorial	Joseph O and Mary (Baer) Bowman
Wanner Mennonite Hespeler	Henry and Anna (Mosser) Wanner Arnold and Barbara (Hershey) Strycker Tobias and Catherine (Strycker) Wanner Abraham and Mary (Custer) Clemens Nathan and Veronica (Bechtel) Clemens
First Mennonite Kitchener	David S and Maria (Bechtel) Bauman Barbara Wanner Beeshy Joseph and Barbara (Eby) Schneider
Martins Old Order Waterloo	David and Maria (Guth) Martin Peter and Anna (Zimmerman) Martin Daniel Z and Veronica (Schneider) Martin Christian G and Anna (Bauman) Martin Christian B and Maria (Bauman) Martin Jacob G and Esther (Bauman) Martin Peter and Barbara (Guth) Burkhard Joseph H and Elizabeth (Hoffman) Bauman Henry H. & Maria (Mosser) Bauman Joseph D and Elizabeth (Bauman) Bauman Joseph B and Veronica (Weber) Snyder Christian and Barbara (Bauman) Snyder Joseph E and Maria (Bauman) Snyder Henry H and Salome (Bauman) Weber John and Catherine (Gehman) Weber Rev Samuel and Anna (Martin) Weber
St Jacobs Mennonite (3 Bridges School)	John W. & Catharine (Martin) Brubacher John S and Elizabeth (Burkhart) Brubacher Peter G and Maria (Bauman) Martin
Conestoga Old Order	Isaiah B and Leah (Brubacher) Martin Michael and Veronica (Martin) Brubacher Peter P and Lydia (Brubacher) Martin Daniel and Elizabeth (Beeshy) Brubacher
Hawkesville	Elias and Annie (Brox) Martin Peter B and Lovina (Martin) Martin Chris B (and Leah) Martin
Centre Wellesley (Dave Martin)	John W and Leah (Snyder) Martin
Wallenstein (Dave Martin)	David B and Catharina (Weber) Martin
Elmira Old Order Mennonite	Louis and Caroline (Randall) Brox Thomas and (Catherine Schaefer) Randall
St James Lutheran, Elmira	Jakob and Catharina (Ziegler) Brox
West Montrose United	John C and Molly (Clemens) Weber