Bill Jewel on Jan. 27, 2003
age 70

The GRAEFF Family of PA

Introduction

This is a preliminary report on discoveries I have made about my GGGG-Grandparents,Johannes Peter and (Anna) Maria Catharina GRAEFF, who were Palatinate emigrants to England’s American colonies in 1767/1768. Part of the report is rediscovery of known history, part of it synthesizes disparate information into a common theme, and part of it reveals new facts about the Graeffs. I have also tried to correct earlier hypotheses that have proven to be false. But, most of all, this report is a ‘journey of discovery’ of my first attempts to develop family history, showing the complicated and uneven way in which historical information reveals itself, and the unexpected and generous help I have received during this quest.

When I started family history research in 1999, the line of Catherine (‘Kate’) May WHILT SYLVESTER, my mother’s mother, was mostly unknown to me, as she rarely talked about her childhood in Minnesota. About all I knew was that she was the first white woman born in Maywood Township, Benton County MNin 1869,and that the descendants of her two sisters and three brothers now lived primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Thanks to the Internet, I have been able to re-establish connections with my 2cd and 3^rd cousins and to begin to reconstruct the western Whilt family tree and history, which is a fascinating saga in itself.

From them, I learned that Kate’s parents were Joseph Henry WHILT, a Civil War veteran from Bedford County PA, and Rebecca Belle GROVE, from Somerset County PA. Except for some family tales about how they met and married just after the Civil War, and speculation about why they had left Pennsylvania almost immediately for the Minnesota frontier, almost nothing else was known about their earlier years and their ancestors. Digging out the history of the Whilt and Grove families has been a fascinating pursuit over the past two years, and is still incomplete even now. Along the way I have been fortunate in meeting many distant relations and in making new friends with common interests. Many interesting facts and stories have been uncovered, and I believe I have corrected some earlier genealogical errors without introducing too many of my own.

U. S. Census microfilms for 1850 and 1860 provided the information that Rebecca’s parents were John and Catherine GROVE, who lived in Stonycreekand Shade Townships in Somerset County, and some basic facts about her two brothers and two sisters. Censuses before that time give only the name of the head of the household, and so are of little value in tracing ancestors, although, of course they provide confirmation on the existence and size of a household. My first breakthrough came through the Internet, when I established contact with descendants of Rebecca’s oldest sister, Susanna GROVE, who married Henry DUPPSTADT and had nineteen children! I now have contacts and detailed information about Rebecca’s other siblings. These leads contained information from the Somerset Historical and Genealogical Society library showing that: Catherine’s maiden name was LINDEMAN; that John’s parents were George Michael GRAFF/GROFF and Susanna AUGUSTINE, who lived in StonycreekTownship; and that George Michael’s parents were Johann Peter and Maria Catharina GRAFF, from Brothers Valley Township. From other sources I uncovered the names of John’s and George Michael’s siblings and was able to find new ‘E-cousins’ who are active in Somerset County genealogy.

Another break occurred when I contacted GROFF family members who turned out not to be related to my line. However, they pointed me to a book by Jane E. Best, “The GROFF Book, Volume 2”, (1997), which covers almost 50 GRAFF-GRAEFF-GROFF-GROVE-etc. families in early Pennsylvania. To find such a detailed summary of so many people with similar, mutable names, but not directly related to each other, was a humbling experience. More to the point, there, on page 199 of GROFF-2, was ‘my’ GRAFF family, with lots of apparently valid supporting information. This detail was extremely useful at building up the GROVE family tree and discovering related families, but some of the ‘information’ later turned out to be a mixed blessing.

By the time I visited Somerset County in Spring, 2000, I had a good idea of where to go and what I might find, as well as the names of first contacts. At the Historical and Genealogical Society, I found a folder marked “GRAFF”, with the notes of two local genealogists, whose investigations were in the 1960s and 1970s. At that point, the general consensus among all sources was that the members of this first family who emigratedto Brother’s Valley were:

Johannes Peter GRAFF, b. (ca) 1730, d. 1800;

   m. 22 Aug 1748, Anna Maria YOST, b. 20 Feb 1729, d. 1809;

                             (3) Anna Gertrude GRAFF, b. 21 Apr 1752, sponsor Anna Gertraud ???,

               m. ‘Franz’ HOEH (Francis HAY) in PA;

               (5) Anna Elizabeth GRAFF, b. 21 Jan 1757, sponsor Elizabeth Yost, ,d. 1789,

                                firstwife of ClemenENGLE, b. 1747, d. 1812;

                                (7) George Michael GRAFF/GROFF, b. 20 Nov 1760, sponsor George Tilman,

                                m. ca. 1781, Susanna AUGUSTINE;

                                (9) Anna Barbara GRAFF, b. ‘‘in America” 11 Nov 1767, sponsorChristina Yost,

…m. Conrad BRAN(D)T.

Five other children were mentioned, but only their birth dates and sponsors were given. Already, there were minor discrepancies in the different accounts; for example, the book GROFF-2 has the dates above as baptismal dates, in contrast to birth dates in the original materials. I found out that the HAY, ENGLE, and BRAN(D)T families have been extensively researched since the 60’s, and was able to contact representatives of all of these female lines, or to examine their Web sites. Only George Michael’s line was incomplete. Every source seemed to be certain that Maria’s maiden name was YOST, and, especially in GROFF-2, that they came from the littlevillage of Wynigen, Canton Bern, Switzerland. As we shall see, these hypotheses were found to be false.

At the Berlin Area Historical Society in Brothersvalley Township, I obtained an English transcription of the German baptismal records of the Reformed and Lutheran Congregations of Berlin; these helped to confirm the early presence of the Graff and allied families and provide some births in the third generation. These church records and the early tax lists show that the spelling of the family name varied substantially. Since there was a steady decrease in the number of German speakers in the region after 1800, the progression from Graff to Groff to Grove seemed quite reasonable. In the English translation of his 1791 Will, which I obtained at the Somerset County courthouse, the signature is Johann Peter Graff, so Groff seems to have been only used in the next generation or two. But even George Michael is called Graff in the early baptismal records.

Practically the only original source mentioned in the Somerset material was ‘‘The GraeffinBible”, which apparently was a Bible kept by (Anna) Maria Catharina in which she had inscribed family data. The early genealogists had examined the Bible, and left behind a description of it with a note that it was in the possession of Brant descendants. But by 2000, no photocopy or transcription of the inscriptions seemed to be available, and, for a while, even the whereabouts of the Bible was unknown! Instead, I found from various sources four or five ‘annotated’ versions of the inscriptions, all of which differed from the others! Clearly I would have to find and examine the Bible itself to see what Maria actually wrote!