ROOTS & BRANCHES

Sometimes you try to kill a lot of birds with one stone.

For one thing, with the busy holiday period coming up, when I found that five historic organizations in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, had banded together for a long weekend of “Pennsylvania German Christmas” events from Dec. 6–8, I was ecstatic that I might be able to hit all of these places in a single day.

For another, these groups are all in the watershed of the Perkiomen Creek and its branches, and that’s relevant to one of my enduring genealogical mysteries: the maiden name of Barbara Beidler (1729–1802), who married my fifth-great-grandfather Conrad Beidler sometime before they came to Berks County in the early 1760s.

Conrad was a prominent miller in Berks County and since his father Johannes lived in Montgomery County and was not known to be a miller, I have long had a hypothesis that perhaps wherever Conrad learned the trade there was a “miller’s daughter” who became his wife. And where better for Conrad to have apprenticed than at a mill in his youthful backyard of the Perkiomen Valley?

So, my plan in visiting the “Pennsylvania German Christmas” sites is also to see if any of their libraries or museums have knowledge of the area’s mills.

In addition, each of the sites has genealogy assets that are helpful:

• There’s the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center in Pennsburg, which has a Christmas Market of everything from crafts to books and a Pennsylvania German Putz (essentially an expanded nativity scene). But the library and museum also have a wealth of artifacts about the Schwenkfelder denomination—a small religious group that began in Europe and has just a few congregations centered in Montgomery County—as well as Pennsylvania German life in general.
• Down the road from the Schwenkfelders in the village of Green Lane is the Goschenhoppen Historians, the keepers of history and culture of the so-called Goschenhoppen region that encompassed much of the Upper Perkiomen Valley and touches parts of Montgomery, Lehigh, Berks and Bucks counties. Its contribution to the weekend is four levels of a Christmas Market, including an enormous bake sale!
• The Mennonite Heritage Center has its own Christmas Market in Harleysville, with a highlight on local artisans (Since Barbara was baptized as an adult, I’ve also wondered if she originally was an Anabaptist, but no luck proving that so far!).
• Near Lansdale is the Peter Wentz Farmstead, which will have an open house with craft and cooking demonstrations (Of interest to me here is that they are interpreting the history of enslavement on the farmstead, a topic I’m researching regarding my own ancestors).
• Finally, Historic Trappe (in the borough of the same name) will have candlelight tours at the Muhlenberg House (Trappe’s also where Conrad’s parents Johannes and Maria are buried).

The sites have different open times and days during the Pennsylvania German Christmas weekend. A central place to get all the info is at the web URL, https://pagermanchristmas.org/

Will I find new information on Barbara? Maybe or maybe not, but I’m confident that I’ll have a great time regardless!