ROOTS & BRANCHES

I first encountered Barbara Granato more than a decade ago when I did an all-day series of lectures for the Central New York Genealogical Society and renewed the acquaintance at a New York State Family History Conference near Syracuse, N.Y., a couple of years later.

Granato has some deep roots in Pennsylvania, including a prominent family of millers whose name was originally the likely Dutch surname of Pfannebecker (and many, many spelling variants) but eventually standardized for most of them as Pennypacker, including the only historian to become a state chief executive, Pennsylvania Gov. Samuel W. Pennypacker, who held office in the early 1900s. In fact, Pennypacker Mills is a historic site in Montgomery County.

As referenced in last week’s column, I’ve long thought that the father of my mystery fifth-great-grandmother Barbara, who married miller Conrad Beidler and moved from Montgomery to Berks County, might have been the miller from whom Conrad learned his trade.

As a matter of fact, I thought I had was a good theory—on which I was working the first time I met Granato—that said father might have been Peter Pennypacker, an early owner of Pennypacker Millers.

It even lined up with one of the most common Pennsylvania German naming patterns—using the given names of the grandparents—since Conrad and Barbara Beidler’s children were named Johannes, Maria, Elisabetha, and Peter. Conrad’s parents were Johannes and Maria, so when I learned Peter Pennypacker’s wife was an Elisabetha … I thought I had a good match.

Alas an alack, although Peter Pennypacker’s will named a daughter Barbara, other sources showed a substantially later birthdate and a marriage to someone other than Conrad Beidler.

Granato, however, hasn’t ever forgotten about trying to make us cousins, an effort I continue to applaud.

She sent along an email recently when she found a collateral connection to a Beidler; unfortunately, it appears likely that the Beidler mentioned stems from a group of Mennonite Beidlers who mostly settled in Lehigh County (I’ve made it a bit of a cottage industry to research not only Beidlers from my own immigrant ancestor but also the other immigrants to Pennsylvania).

Granato’s cottage industry has been proving Daughters of the American Revolution lines—she has at least 20 Patriots and believes she has more still that are as yet unproven.

Also, given that she has ancestry in Trappe and Limerick, the same Montgomery County area as my Beidler family, she feels fairly confident that our ancestors knew each other.  “I had Spare family members who also lived in Trappe,” Granato wrote, “and some are even buried at the Augustus Lutheran Church Cemetery there. I have a Rev War patriot Henry Hollenbusch who is also buried there.” 

Since one of Conrad Beidler’s sisters was buried at Augustus Lutheran, I’m betting she’s correct that our ancestors rubbed elbows! And we’re not giving up on becoming cousins!