Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Harshbarger line: Hans Jacob Kemery and those darn facts, or lack thereof

One of the things blogging makes me do, which is a good thing, is look for weak links in the tree.  It looks like Hans Jacob Kemery or Kemmerli may be one of them.  He was born sometime in the 1780s (per 1840 census)  in York County, Pa, and married Anna Maria Lauber.  He died in Stark County, Ohio on October 8, 1847 and is buried in Sherman Church Cemetery there. The known children of Jacob and Anna Maria are John, Adam, Daniel, Jacob, and George.  I suspect there are more children, especially girls, but I have not yet found them. 

The 1840 census in Pike Township, Stark County, Ohio does show three females who could be his children.  This is the only census record I've found that fits the family and the suspected locations they would have been, although there are records in Northampton County, Pa that may be the family in earlier years. 

The reason I'm questioning the information on my tree is that I was looking for some names in a copy of a book edited by Don Yoder, called Pennsylvania German Immigrants. In that book there is listed a Johann Jacob Kuemmerle and wife Margaretha nee Heintzelman of Neckarlenzlingen, (Germany), along with a son Johann Jacob born 12/ 6/1744 and daughter Anna Margaretha born 12/27/1742.  This family came to America on the Richard and Mary, landing in Philadelphia on September 17, 1753. 

The information on the internet, unsourced, gives a birth date for our H. Jacob's father as 1734 and says he was born in Holland.  I have found other ancestors who were listed as from Holland when their actual birth location was a German state or Switzerland. The families may have stayed in Holland for a year or two to raise money to come to America, but they weren't permanent residents there. I suspect this may be the case with this family.  I would life to look at the "Kuemmerle" family in more depth to determine whether they could be ancestors of Hans Jacob born 1791.   And if so, was the Johann Jacob born in 1744 the father of our H. Jacob, or the grandfather?  Either would be a possibility.

Indications are that this family may have been in York County, Pa, possibly Windsor Township, so my next trip to the Allen County Public Library will include a search of the records there.  In the meantime, I would love to hear from anyone researching this family.  Maybe you've already found the answers I'm looking for, or maybe we can work together to solve this mystery. 

This is the line of descent. 

H. Jacob Kemery-Anna Maria Lauber
Daniel Kemery and Susannah Essig
Adam Kemery and Nancy Buchtel
Della Kemery and William H Withers
Goldie Withers and Grover Harshbarger
Cleveland Harshbarger and Mary Margaret Beeks
Harshbarger children and grand children-you know who you are! 

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