ROOTS & BRANCHES

I’ve heard the saying “you learn something new every day”—and on the day of writing this installment of the “Roots & Branches” column, that was supplied by Jeffrey D. Sherbondy of the Sherbondy Family Association.

Sherbondy describes himself as an experienced family researcher and publisher and his initial inquiry bore that out—he’s obviously grabbed more than just the low-hanging fruit about the families he’s researching but wants to hone in on finding elusive villages of origin.

Two of the families settled in Hamilton Township, now Monroe County, Pennsylvania, and are his direct ancestors.  “John Sherbondy (also known as Jean or Johann Cherpantier) first appeared there on tax records in 1764,” Sherbondy wrote. “Johann Philip Bossard (and wife Eva Catharina) first appeared there in 1751 per a deed for 100 acres.”

The other family he’s researching stems from Jacob and Margaret Carpenter (German name Zimmerman) in what’s now West Virginia in the late 1770s.

Here’s where we get to the “learn something new” part. Two descendants from each John Sherbondy and Jacob Carpenter are close matches in Y-DNA, the type of DNA that is transmitted from father to son.

I already knew Zimmermann was German for the occupational name “carpenter,” but I didn’t know that Cherpantier is the French word for that job, which makes the Y match more plausible.

One of the things I liked the best about Sherbondy’s inquiry was that he knew the right questions to ask in search of his goal of finding the villages of origin: Records on the American side, probably ones close to the time of immigration.

While he knew about the Philadelphia ships and oaths lists, Sherbondy wondered what additional records might exist for immigrants in or near Philadelphia in this time period. I was able to tell him about church and pastoral records; naturalization records; sporadic tax records; and some limited newspapers (in both English and German language).

And he knew enough to ask whether these records might have information on immigrant origins, to which I replied that church records were the best bet, as well as studying other passengers on the ships of arrival.

Sherbondy was also interested in the immigrants’ typical stopping points and migration patterns as well as how much time was spent in Philadelphia after arrival.

These were more difficult questions answer since “typical” can be a tricky word. Generally they went to a destination where someone from their village had already settled (chain immigration) to stay temporarily until they could buy their own land.  

The migration pattern was generally northwest from Philadelphia, although some then curved southwest on the Great Wagon Road as far as the Carolinas.

Whether the immigrants stayed long in Philadelphia also depended on when they arrived. The later the immigrant came, the more likely they were to go further west or north in search of affordable land.  

The Sherbondy Family Association’s website is found at the URL, https://sherbondy.org.