JOHAN FRIEDERICH STEMBEL (? - 1749)

On October 25, 1738, at a dock in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a small group of emigrants walked down a ship's gangplank on wobbly legs, feeling both relief and apprehension. Relief because they had survived an ordeal that many of their fellow passengers, even family members, didn't. Apprehension because they were about to begin a new life in a new land. The ship that carried them to this new life was the ship DAVY,⁽¹⁾ and one of those emigrants walking down the gangplank that day was Johan Friederich Stembel.

Friederich⁽²⁾ may have come alone, for the ship's passenger list recorded only the names of adult males. More likely he was accompanied by a wife and at least one child. His arrival marked the end of what was, by all accounts, a very arduous journey, and the beginning of our Stembel family in America.⁽³⁾

We are almost certain that Friederich was from the Palatinate, a sprawling, ever-changing region of what is now western Germany. Why he left, we will probably never know.

Philadelphia.

For us, Johan Friederich's life begins with his arrival in Philadelphia, for no research has yet been done on the Stembel family in Germany. Fortunately, sufficient records have been located in this country to allow us to draw some tentative conclusions about Friederich's past. From these records I have deduced that he was married and had at least one child at the time he left Germany, that he was at least 26 years old when he landed in Philadelphia, and that he was better educated than most immigrants from that region. This latter conclusion is based partly on his signature (see box at the top of this page) on two oaths all immigrants were asked to sign upon arrival in Philadelphia. These were the "Declaration of Fealty" and the "Declaration of Abjuration"⁽⁴⁾ (the originals of these documents--with Friederich's actual signature--are on file in the Pennsylvania State Archives). An examination of his handwriting shows excellent, if somewhat pinched, penmanship. This stands in stark contrast to most other passengers' signatures, which were either simple marks, such as an X, or a barely legible scrawl. Of the 40 adult men from the ship DAVY who "signed" the oaths, 21 could not even write their own name. Of the 19 who could, Friederich's was one of the few signatures that was smooth and legible. In addition, in his pastor's personal journal (more on this later), Friederich was described as someone who was well instructed in the church's fundamentals, and noted that he had been a deacon in his church before emigrating.

Why did Friederich leave Germany? A good education in the 18^th century was usually synonymous with wealth. The trip across the Atlantic was long and dangerous. Many died. This was surely no secret. He must have had strong reasons for leaving home. At this point we can only speculate.

Friederich's desire to emigrate was probably a response to an external event rather than a personal decision on his part to move to America. Something significant was obviously occurring in the Palatinate region during the late 1730s and early 40s. This is evident in the number of ships arriving in Philadelphia carrying German immigrants during this time:

1735......3
1736......3
1737......7
1738....16
1739......8
1740......6
1741....10
1742......5
1743......5
1744......9
1745......0
1746......2

Note the sharp increase in immigration starting in 1737 and running through 1744. There are many possible reasons why this might have occurred. It might have been a response to war or famine, or it might have been a response to something more benign, such as a relaxation of emigration laws by the governments in the region. Further research will no doubt shed more light on this.

We know that a Palatine who wanted to emigrate to America in the 1730s had to first get permission from the authorities, then pay 10% of the value of his property as an emigration tax. Persons who owned no land (serfs) had to actually buy their freedom.⁽⁵⁾ Once permission was granted, the emigrants usually secured passage on a boat down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, Holland, where most of the ships to America departed. The ship DAVY, however, left from nearby Amsterdam (I don't know if this fact is significant or not).

According to a historian, the Navigation Act in effect at the time of Friederich's journey, required all goods, including immigrants, bound for the English colonies to pass through an English port⁽⁶⁾ - usually London or Cowes - where they took on supplies and topped-off their water supply. The ship DAVY's records show she made her final stop at the port of Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, before sailing for America.

The passage from England normally took about eight weeks. The ships were usually crowded and sanitary conditions were poor. Consequently, disease sometimes swept through a ship, often resulting in loss of lives. Indeed, circumstantial evidence suggests that Friederich was accompanied by his wife who either died on the passage to Philadelphia or soon after arriving.⁽⁷⁾ It appears that he was also accompanied by at least one child who survived (and as many as three). However, other children may have accompanied them who perished on the voyage. Unfortunately, the captain of the ship DAVY, when compiling the passenger list, followed the standard practice at the time and registered only males over the age of 16.⁽⁸⁾ Thus, we don't know how many other family members disembarked in Philadelphia with Friederich.

There was a second Stembel that appeared on the ship DAVY's passenger list: Valentin "Stempel."⁽⁹⁾ Sharing their uncommon surname, Friederich and Valentin were almost certainly related. All we know about Valentin is that, by his inclusion on the passenger list, he must have been 16 years old or older. Unlike Friederich, he did not sign the two oaths (evidently it was not required). I don't know if this is significant or not. No further record of Valentin Stembel has been found in this country. Given that he appeared in the ship's passenger list next to Friederich, he may have been his teenage son who died soon after arrival. Other possibilities are that Valentin returned to Germany sometime after his arrival (many did), or he settled somewhere where records were not kept or were lost.

As for Friederich, we know nothing about his whereabouts from the time of his arrival in 1738 to 1744. We know that many newly-arrived German immigrants initially moved to a section of Philadelphia called Germantown. This settlement served as way-station where new arrivals sought out relatives, or acquaintances from their former hometowns, who had arrived earlier. It's probable that Friederich and his family initially lived in Germantown for a time.

Philadelphia, at the time of Friederich's arrival, was fast becoming one of the most important cities in the English colonies. William Penn, whose father, Sir William Penn, was a friend of King Charles II, found that after converting to the Quaker faith, he was no longer welcome in England. So he applied for, and received, a charter from the King for a private colony in America. It was located north of the Maryland colony and east of the Delaware River. The charter was given in 1681. William Penn intended for this colony, called Pennsylvania, to be a refuge for all who were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. He actively advertised in Europe to induce emigrants to leave the Old World and move to his colony.

Because Pennsylvania did not border the ocean (at a time when water travel was the only efficient mode of transportation), the main entry into the colony was up the Delaware River. Penn laid out his principal settlement at the conjunction of the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers. The Schuylkill was an important waterway into the interior. Penn laid out the city in a grid pattern where his wide, paved streets crossed at right angles (as opposed to the planless jumble of streets that comprised Boston and New York). Philadelphia's streets were designed with ample sidewalks and were even lighted at night.

Philadelphia was the fastest growing major city in America at the time of Friederich's arrival. Benjamin Franklin was 32 years old and was quickly becoming a major force in the development of the city. In 1728 (at the age of 22) he became the sole proprietor of the influential Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper, and operated a stationary shop, run by his common-law wife, Deborah.⁽¹⁰⁾ The year before Friederich's arrival, Franklin had organized the Philadelphia police force, the first city-paid constable system in the colonies. He would soon organize the first city fire department (which began as a bucket brigade).

It is certainly possible that during the years he resided in that bustling city of about 15,000, Friederich crossed paths with Benjamin Franklin.

Move to New Hanover.

Sometime before 1744, Friederich moved to the village of New Hanover (in present-day Montgomery County⁽¹¹⁾), about 25 miles northwest of Philadelphia. I assume he was a farmer on land he owned or leased. He and his family attended the New Hanover Lutheran Church.

The New Hanover Lutheran Church was established in 1718 by Anthony Henkel. Today it is the oldest German Lutheran congregation in Pennsylvania. In 1742, an extraordinary man, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, arrived from Germany to become the pastor of this growing church. Soon after assuming the role of pastor, he initiated a church register which has become the oldest known surviving church register in the United States.⁽¹²⁾

Allow me to digress at this point.

Searching for records of ancestors who lived more than 200 years ago can be one of the most frustrating activities a genealogist can engage in. Literacy was low and record keeping was spotty. Thus, many settlers who lived in America during the 18th century may have had few, if any, of their major life events (birth, marriage, death) recorded. In addition, many records made 200 or so years ago, never survived to the 20^th century.⁽¹³⁾ One can search for years without success, never knowing for sure if the desired record even exists. When records cannot be located, we are forced to surmise facts or deduce details about ancestors based on often limited circumstantial evidence.

Given the number of early American settlers whose lives will never be known, I cannot overemphasize how fortunate we are that Friederich moved to New Hanover and attended a church whose new pastor was literate, and had the foresight to initiate a church register. Without that church register, we probably never would have known for sure that the Johan Friederich Stembel who arrived in America on the ship DAVY was, in fact, the father of Frederick Stembel, the common ancestor of all the Stembels found in this book.

Stembels first appeared in the New Hanover Lutheran Church register February 5, 1744. On that date Friederich and his wife sponsored the baptism of a baby.⁽¹⁴⁾ For the next 10 years members of Friederich's family regularly appeared in the church register. From this register we find that Friederich's wife was named Ann Catherine, and that there were seven different children with the Stembel surname [spelled "Stempel" in the church registry]. Of these, we find Friederich is identified in some way as the father of five of the seven. For the other two, there is no indication of parentage.

We know that three of Friederich's five known children were born in New Hanover, for their baptisms were recorded in the church register. Another child was born before the church register was begun, but after Friederich's arrival in America. Thus, she could have been born elsewhere in Pennsylvania. Friederich's oldest child was born in Germany a few years before he departed for America.

New Hanover Lutheran Church, New Hanover, Pennsylvania (1993)

We are doubly indebted to Rev. Muhlenberg, for not only did he initiate the church register in the New Hanover Lutheran Church, he also maintained a personal journal of his ministry in Pennsylvania.⁽¹⁵⁾ This is extremely fortunate, for Rev. Muhlenberg devoted a considerable portion of his December 1749 journal entry to the events that lead up to Friederich Stembel's death. It is ironic that in describing Friederich's death, Rev. Muhlenberg brought to life a man who otherwise would have existed only as lifeless entries in a church register. In his journal, Rev. Muhlenberg described Friederich's personality, his thoughts, and, quite possibly, recorded some of his very words for us to know him by.

According to Muhlenberg, Friederich was a very faithful member of his New Hanover church who "...neglected no opportunity to hear the Word of God in his church." He found Friederich had been well instructed in the church's fundamentals as a youth, and had held the office of Deacon back in Germany. Friederich was a stout defender of the evangelical Lutheran faith, which they shared, and on occasion had even gone so far as to admonish Rev. Muhlenberg to defend his doctrine against the rival Zinzendorfers (more commonly known as Moravians⁽¹⁶⁾).

In the summer of 1749, Friederich was left quite ill after "...having injured himself by taking a drink of cold water during the great heat of summer, and suffering further injury to his liver through taking the violent medicines of a quack doctor." He could not seem to get well. Rev. Muhlenberg visited him on many occasions and ministered his soul. Friederich told Muhlenberg that he was afraid to die because he had small children that were still uneducated. His wife was also sickly [sometimes a euphemism for being pregnant]. Friederich said he was being tortured by thoughts of the many sins he had committed as a youth, thoughts he could not banish from his mind. Muhlenberg writes that eventually Friederich repented of these sins and died with a joyful and confident heart. I've extracted Muhlenberg's journal entry; you can read it here..

A Review of Friederich's Life.

We are fairly certain Friederich was born and raised in the Palitinate. We know he was old enough and responsible enough to be a deacon in his church before leaving for Pennsylvania. We know he was married, and had a child in 1732 or earlier, and we know that child accomppanied Friederich, and presumably his wife, on their voyage to Pennsylvania. Friederich's next known child was born six years later, in about 1742, three years after arriving in Pennsylvania. Another child was born four years later, in 1746, then another in 1748. Their last child was born in 1750, months after Friederick's death. All total, Friderich had five known children, possibly more for some may have died on the way to Pennsylvania.

We believe Friederich remained in Philadelphia for his first few years in the colony. Sometime before 1744 he moved his family (a wife and two daughters) to the village of New Hanover. There is reason to believe a third child, 14-year-old Anna Regina Stembel, also lived with them. She doesn't appear to be Friederich's daughter. It is likely that Friederich was a farmer in New Hanover, for his pastor wrote that Friederich would recall his sermons while working in the field. In the summer of 1749, Friederich became ill and injured his liver when he took medicine from a quack doctor. His pastor described his death.

After his death, Friederich's widow, Ann Catherine, then had five more children with her new husband between 1751 and 1759. If Ann Catherine was Friederich's only wife, she gave birth to at least 10 children in the 27 years between 1732 and 1759, with a long pause between the first (born in Germany) and the second (born in Pennsylvania). For this reason, we should consider the possiblty that Friederich's fist wife died on the voyage to Pennsylvania, and that he remarried soon after he arrived.

Friederich's Death, His Widow Re-marries.

According to the church register, Friederich died in November of 1749. The exact date of his death was not entered, nor was his age at the time of death. I have determined he was at least 37 years of age when he died, but I believe he was older, probably closer to 50.⁽¹⁷⁾ Six months after Friederich died, Ann Catherine gave birth to their final child, a son. Sadly, the baby died shortly afterwards.

Friederich's widow, Ann Catherine, remarried just ten months after his death. This may seem disrespectful--even callous--by today's standards, but in fact, it serves to demonstrate just how precarious life was for a widow in the 18^th century. Most settlers of that era lived on farms. The husband and older sons generally tended the farm while the wife and older daughters tended the home, the younger children, and the garden. When a woman's husband died, their older sons were expected to take on the farming responsibilities. If they had no sons--or if the sons were too young--the widow could sell the farm to pay off the debts, and move in with relatives. If that was not possible, she could remarry. Mourning, and a lengthy courtship, were often luxuries that could not be indulged. When Friederich died, Ann Catherine was left with at least four young children, three under the age of eight. She was pregnant with a fifth. Not only that, but in the short span of eighteen months, she had suffered through the deaths of her mother (December 11, 1748)⁽¹⁸⁾, her husband (November 1749), and her baby (May 1750).

On August 7, 1750, Ann Catherine married Johan Adam Eberle in New Hanover's Falkner Swamp Reformed Church.⁽¹⁹⁾ We believe Adam Eberle was 28, and had emigrated from the Palatine just a year earlier, landing in Philadelphia in October 1749. After marrying, Adam and Ann Catherine had at least four more children together.

Falkner Swamp Reformed Church, New Hanover, Pennsylvania (1993)

Move To Maryland.

After they married, Adam Eberle and Ann Catherine moved to Frederick County, Maryland, most likely in the spring of 1752, soon after Catherine's daughter, Elizabeth, was married.⁽²⁰⁾ Their three remaining children, two Stembels and one Eberle, noved with them. I believe they eventually settled on land west of Frederick, the county seat, and northwest of present-day Middletown. It appears Adam had two brothers, Leonard and Michael, who lived nearby. Adam raised Ann Catherine's children as his own, despite the fact that they kept the Stembel surname⁽²¹⁾.

Surprisingly little is known about the Eberle's activities in Frederick County. More research is needed. According to my records, Adam Eberle died on June 20, 1795,⁽²²⁾ at the age of 72. We have yet to find a record of Ann Catherine's death, but she last appeared in a church record in 1782.⁽²³⁾

Friederich's Five Known Children, Plus Two.

Here is a brief summary of Friederich's five known children and the two Stembel children who may have been Friederich's:

A. Felicitas Maria Stembel. (c 1732- ?) Felicitas was born in the Palatine (now western Germany). Although we have no record of her birth, we can estimate her age based on the date of her confirmation in April 1744, as recorded in the New Hanover Lutheran Church register. Unfortunately, in 1744 the ages of the children confirmed that year were not recorded, as they were in most other years. A review of those ages reveals that the youngest age of confirmation during that era was 12 years old. If Felicitas was 12 when she was confirmed, she was born sometime around 1732, or six years before her family journeyed to America.

On May 15, 1748, four years after she was confirmed, Felicitas sponsored a baptism with Leonard Rothermal (the Rothermals appear to have been close friends - or relatives - of the Stembels). Two-and-a-half years later, on November 18, 1750, Felicitas and Leonard sponsored another baptism together.

Two baptisms in two-and-a-half years give the appearance that there may have been a relationship between Felicitas and Leonard, especially given that Felicitas was about 16 to 18 years of age at the time of the baptisms, though its possible they were just close friends, or possibly cousins. On the other hand, they may have been engaged to marry (however, two-and-a-half years would have been an unusually long engagement for the 18^th century). There is no record, however, of their marriage in the New Hanover Lutheran Church register. In fact, I have found no further records of Felicitas, whatsoever. She may have married someone from a different church nearby that didn't have a church register yet.

Another possibility will be presented later in this chapter.

B. Anna Maria Stembel. (1741/2-1802) The first record we have of Anna Maria is the church record of her confirmation on April 21, 1754. The New Hanover Lutheran Church church register states she was 12 years old at the time, meaning she was born in 1741-2, two years before the church register was begun.

This is the only entry for Anna Maria in the church's register. In 1758, however, she appeared in the church register of the Fredericktown (Frederick County, Maryland) Reformed Church, where she sponsored a baptism.⁽²⁴⁾ That same church register later shows she married a Daniel Sturm [Storms] on April 7, 1761.

We would normally expect to see additional entries in the church register for Anna Maria and Daniel as their children were born and baptized, but such is not the case. Daniel and Anna Maria do not appear in a Frederick County church register again until 1770 when they sponsored two baptisms in Middletown's Reformed Church.

In 1771, the birth of their son, Jacob, was entered in both the Frederick Lutheran Church and the Middletown Reformed Church registers.⁽²⁵⁾ After the birth of Jacob, again there are no more entries for Daniel and Anna Maria. Nor do they appear in the 1790 federal census of Frederick County.

However, 21 years later there is an entry in the Middletown Reformed Church register on April 15, 1792, for the baptism of Elizabetha Sturm, daughter of Jacob and Catherine Sturm. Elizabetha was born October 18, 1791. While it would normally be a stretch to assume the Jacob Sturm in the register was Anna Maria and Daniel's son (who would have been 20 at the time of Elizabetha's birth), what is intriguing about this entry is that the baptism was sponsored by Barbara Ewerle (Eberle). Barbara Eberle was Anna Maria's younger step-sister⁽²⁶⁾. I believe this relationship makes it reasonable to assume that Elizabetha was, in fact, Anna Maria and Daniel's granddaughter.

As mentioned earlier, neither Daniel nor Jacob appear in the 1790 census in Frederick County. Nor do they appear in the 1800 federal census in Frederick County, however there are two Sturm families found in the 1800 Census for Somerset County, Pennsylvania. One family is headed by a Daniel Sturm and the other, living nearby, is headed by a Jacob Sturm! Not only that, but the information contained in the census concerning the ages and gender of their family members fits what we know about them. Unfortunately, they do not show up in the 1810 census for Somerset County.

According to a descendant of Daniel Sturm, Paula Schoonmaker, Daniel Sturm/Storms was born 1738 in Klein Schifferstadt (in what is now Germany). He was the son of Wendel Sturm. This is the Daniel Sturm who married Anna Maria in 1761. Paula also affirms that they had a son, Jacob (born 1771), and another son, Daniel, Jr. (born 1780), and several daughters. Sometime before 1781 they moved to Turkeyfoot Township in Bedford County, Pennsylvania (now Lower Turkeyfoot Township, Somerset County).

In 1801 they moved to Crosby Township, Hamilton County, Ohio (just west of Cincinnati). Anna Maria died there on October 21, 1802. Daniel died in 1804. Paula relates that according to the family Bible, Daniel, Jr., had a son named William Stembell Storms. In fact we find a W.S. Storms enumerated in the 1840 census in Middletown, Butler County, Ohio (about 25 miles northwest of Crosby Township).

Tax records for Turkeyfoot Township show Daniel and Anna Maria were present in that township as early as 1788. This and Pennsylvania and Ohio census records support Paula's information.⁽²⁷⁾

Update (2013): It now appears that Anna Maria and Daniel had eight children, four of whom I have found information about. However I'm only confident of the information we have on one of them, their oldest child, Maria Magdelina Storms. We know for certain that Maria married Peter Helmick, and they had at least one child, Daniel. Daniel Helmick married Polly Miller, and they had at least one child, Samuel. Samuel Helmick married Mary Ann Marsden, and they had at least nine children between 1845 and 1864, one of whom was Samuel Marsden Helmick who applied for membership in the Iowa chapter of the Sons of American Revolution (SAR). It is through this membership application and census records that we know all of the above.

The other three children of Anna Maria and Daniel that we know of are Juliana Storms, who we believe married Emanuel Vantreese, Jacob Storms who we believe married and had at least two children, Lewis and Elizabeth, and Daniel Storms, Jr., who married and moved to the town of Franklin, Ohio, where he raised a large family. We know of three of his children at this point (2015), a son William, and two daughters, Sarah and Theodosin. Daniel, Jr. died in 1865 and is buried in Dayton's Woodland Cemetery.

This is all preliminary information and more research is needed on this branch of the family.

C. Christoph Stembel. ⁽²⁸⁾(1746-?) Christoph was born on November 30, 1746. He was baptized about a week later December 7, sponsored by his namesake and close friend of the Stembel's, Christoph Rothermal.

This is the only record we have of Christoph Stembel. Did he die as a child? Did he move to Maryland with the rest of his family? We don't know.

I have found an intriguing coincidence, however. A Christian Stemple (spelled Stempfle) briefly appears in the church register⁽²⁹⁾ of a Frederick County church⁽³⁰⁾ where Christoph's younger brother, Frederick, regularly attended. Christian Stempfle moved his family to nearby Hagerstown soon after, where he lived the rest of his life. What makes this such an intriguing coincidence is that my records show both Christian and Christoph were born in 1746!⁽³¹⁾ While I would like to prove that Christian was Frederick's brother, Christoph, I doubt this is anything more than a coincidence. If Christian and Frederick were brothers, I would have expected their last names to be spelled the same in the church register. They're not. Also, I would have expected them to sponsor the baptism of at least one of each other's children, but that was not the case either. It should also be noted that all of Christian's children spelled their last name 'Stemple' as adults, while Frederick's children spelled their last name 'Stembel' as adults. Still, we cannot ignore the possibility that Christian and Christoph were one and the same.

D. Frederick Stembel. (1748-1840) Frederick is the subject of the following chapter.

E. (infant son) Stembel. (1750-1750) Six months after her husband died, Ann Catherine gave birth to Friederich's last child, a son. The baby died at birth or soon after. His birth was not recorded, just his death. The May 19, 1750, entry in the church register reads simply "Stempel..............infant son of widow of Friederich."⁽³²⁾

There are two additional "Stempel" children that appear in the register of the New Hanover Lutheran Church whose only link to Friederich is their surname.

?. Anna Regina Stembel. (1730? - ?) Anna Regina Stempel was confirmed on the same day as Felicitas Maria (see above). They were almost certainly related, having the same unique last name and being listed next to each other in the church's list of confirmations. What is puzzling, however, is that all but two of the girl's on the list had their father's name entered next to their's (another had "orphan" written where her father's name would have gone). Felicitas' name was followed by "Johan Friederich Stempel's daughter," but Anna Regina's name (listed just above Felicitas') is followed by a blank.⁽³³⁾ In cases where a father had more than one child confirmed, the children's names were bracketed with a pointer toward the father's name.

I am puzzled why Anna Regina's father's name was not entered in the church record. As noted above, if she was an orphan, this would have been entered where her father's name would appear.

Here are some possible reasons why her father's name was not given:

1. She was the daughter of Friederich, but his name was left off or a bracket was not placed around Anna Regina's and Felicitas' name due to an oversight, or because the Stembel family was so well known within the congregation that there was no need to identify them both as Friederich's daughter's. I find this highly unlikely because Anna Regina's name was listed first in the register and thus would be the one most likely to have Friederich's name entered.

2. Anna Regina was the daughter of a relative, probably a brother, of Friederich's who lived in an area where church services were infrequent. That relative may have sent Anna Regina to New Hanover to be confirmed with Felicitas. This seems like a reasonable scenario, but it doesn't seem to offer a reason why Anna Regina's father's name was not entered in the church record, since it would have been known by all of the family members.

3. Anna Regina's father (a Stembel) died when she was young, and her mother remarried. Like the scenario above, Anna Regina came to New Hanover to be confirmed with Felicitas, or possibly to live with Friederich's family because her mother and stepfather could not provide for her. If she was very young when her father died, she may not have remembered her father's name when asked at the time of her confirmation.

4. The father's name may have been blank because of a family embarrassment. Illegitimacy was not unknown at the time. Or perhaps her father had become an embarrassment to the church or community. While highly unlikely, it must still be considered.

There are certainly other possibilities, but of the four listed above, I favor the third. Since women and children's names were not listed on the DAVY's passenger list, Friederich might have been accompanied by a brother's widow and her children and we would never have known it. Another possibility is that Anna Regina was the daughter of the Valentin Stembel who appeared on the passenger list with Friederich.

Sadly, I have found no subsequent record of Anna Regina. I hope someday we can solve this mystery. Given the fact that she was confirmed with Felicitas, she, too, was probably born before her family emigrated. If so, there is a good chance her birth is recorded in a church register somewhere in Germany. This would reveal the names of her mother and father.

??. Elisabeth Stembel. (1734- ?) Elisabeth Stempel may not exist.

On February 3, 1751,⁽³⁴⁾ the New Hanover Lutheran Church register shows that an Elisabeth Stempel and a Casper Keplinger sponsored a baby's baptism. This is the only record I have of Elisabeth Stemple. There is nothing to link her to Friederich other than her surname.

A year later (March 18, 1752) a Casper Käpperling (note the similarity with Casper Keplinger above) married a Litz (short for Elisabeth?) Stemple. It takes no great leap in logic to assume "Elisabeth" and "Litz" are one and the same.

When trying to reconstruct a family's history based on sketchy church records written in German more than two centuries ago by someone of, often, limited education (by today's standards), one must become adept at reading between the lines. Often the only evidence that a person ever existed in the 18^th century is one or two scrawled entries in a church register. It is important, then, to try to glean as much about that person as possible from that entry. It is just as important, however, to avoid the trap of jumping to conclusions based on one's desire to tie up all loose threads into a nice, neat, coherent package. Frequently, different records present contradictory information, leaving the researcher to wonder whether there are two different people or just one. The researcher must accept the fact that some of these questions may never be resolved.

Back to Elisabeth and Litz. There is a later entry in the church register that, at first glance, appears to solve this dilemma, but in fact, confuses the situation even more. On October 22, 1752, a baby's baptism was sponsored by "Casper Capperling and wife." I believe we can assume this is the same Casper Käpperling who married Litz Stemple seven months earlier (the name Casper was no more common in the 18th century than it is now). Since we are trying to determine the real name of Casper's wife, the fact that it wasn't given in this entry is disappointing. However, all is not lost. There was a tradition among Germans in the 18th century to name babies after their sponsor. Since this baby was a girl, the name given to her could very well reveal the real name of Casper's wife.

The baby's name?

Felicitas!

Is it possible that the records for Elisabeth and Litz were actually referring to Felicitas? It's a real possibility. The name Felicitas is phonetically very similar to Elisabeth, and if Litz was a nickname, it fits Felicitas just as well as Elisabeth. Even more telling is the fact that if we assume Felicitas was born in 1732, she would have been about 20 years old at the time Casper married Litz, a likely age for a woman to marry.

This is a very nice theory indeed, except for one little problem: the baptism sponsored by Casper Keplinger and Elisabeth Stembel a little over a year before Casper Käpperling (Keplinger?) married Litz Stembel. The baby whose baptism they sponsored was also a girl...and she was given the name Elisabeth, after her sponsor, not Felicitas. This puts a real damper on the theory because we know Felicitas's middle name was Maria, so how could she and Elisabeth possibly be the same person? Maybe new information will emerge that will clarify this mystery.

34. Ibid., p. 427.

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Copyright. Oren Stembel, STEMBEL FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT (familyhistory.stembel.org)