I am sharing an old story today because our German Family Tree says that the main character, Johann George Roth, was born on January 6, 1806. If that is his correct date of birth, then today would be his 220th birthday. Yesterday, I mentioned that I get excited when I discover someone who is celebrating his 200th birthday. Johann George would be celebrating his birthday that goes back even 2 more decades. I think that is worth republishing Johann George’s earlier post today. It also would give me a day when it will be a bit easier to write a post.
If you read the attached post, you will be told that there is a bit of debate about whether today would be Johann George’s birthday, or if yesterday would have been his 220th birthday.
Johann George’s baptism record, which is displayed in the attached post, says that he was baptized at the parish in Winden, Germany. The map showing Winden below indicates that city is found in the region of Bavaria. It is also located just east of the boundary between France and Germany. It is not that far from Switzerland either.
Johann George, along with his wife, Margaretha, and three children came to America in 1836, had another child while living in New York City for a few years. Then, they became part of what is called the New York Group that made the decision to join the German Lutheran immigrants settling in Perry County, Missouri. That group arrived in Perry County at about the time when the other immigrants who were part of the group under Martin Stephan’s leadership, were also arriving there. It was also about the time when Rev. Martin Stephan was being banished from the community. A lot of the members of the New York Group did not remain in the Perry County area very long, but the Roth’s were one of the families that stuck it out.
More children were born to the Roth’s in Perry County, and all but one of them was baptized at Concordia Lutheran Church in Frohna. One child born in 1844 was baptized at Grace Lutheran Church in Uniontown. All together, the German Family Tree lists 10 children born to Johann George and Margaretha.
Starting with the name of Johann George Roth in our German Family Tree, we find that the descendants who came from the male members of the family fill up 30 pages in that document. It is an impressive list for sure, and it all began with the man born on this day (or yesterday) 220 years ago.
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Just one more quick note. Not long ago, when looking back at previous statistics for this blog, I noticed that the last date on which we did NOT publish a post was January 6th a year ago. That means we have now gone a whole year without missing a day of posting on this blog. Thanks to our museum director, Denise Hellwege, who regularly posts an article on Fridays, we now have accomplished this year-long streak.