Monday Is for Mothers: Anna Segrist (1740 - About 1800)

Thanks to research done by Jeffery Bernstein* we have the baptism record for Anna in the archives of Zurich, Switzerland.

[Source: Staatsarchiv Zurich, added to an ancestry.com profile by Jeffrey Bernstein]

Ten-year-old Anna left for Pennsylvania together with her parents John Segrist (also Sechrist or Sigerist) and Anna Wildberger and her brothers and sisters on the ship "Brotherhood" which arrived in Philadelphia on November 3, 1750.

The Segrist family settled in York County where Anna married Franz Graaf (also known as Francis Grove) and they settled in Shrewsbury Township. I haven't found a marriage record for them but their first child was born in October of 1760 when Anna would have been twenty.

In the early Spring of 1765 Anna's father died without leaving a will and her mother filed a petition with the probate court regarding a division of his estate. She named all her children and Anna was listed as the wife of Francis Grof. In petition filed at the same court term, Anna's oldest brother Jacob sought the clarification of the status of 50 acres of land he considered to not be part of his mother's marriage settlement. He requested a division of the land among himself and his siblings.**

[Another document originally found by Jeffery Bernstein]

Anna and Franz had seven children, 6 boys and one girl, their youngest. My direct ancestor is their fourth son John, born in 1769.

Anna died sometime before June of 1801 when Franz married a widow Catharine Eberhard who survived his death in 1812.

We don't know where either Anna or Franz are buried.

Here's how I'm related to her:

[Ancestry.com]

*He's married to one of my distant cousins through my great great grandmother Mercy Darling's second marriage to Joshua Butler Walsh.
**I don't know the outcome of this petition.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Franz Graaf/Francis Grove (1733 - 1812) Immigrant & Farmer

From Swiss records for the town of Rafz we know that this maternal 5X great grandfather left his native land in 1743 when he was a ten year old orphan in the company of his maternal uncle and his family.

[Emigration record for Francis Grove, 16 May 1743, Rafz, Zurich, Switzerland.

Source: Staatsarchiv Zurich.}

Fortunately for those of us who aren't fluent in German, a translation is available. As far as I can tell he never followed his father's (and uncle's) trade of mason.

[From Faust, A. Bernhardt. (1920-1925). Lists of Swiss emigrants in the eighteenth century to the American colonies. Volume 1 Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society. Source: HathiTrust]

Young Franz made it safely to Pennsylvania where he settled in Shrewsbury in York County and later* married the daughter of another Swiss couple  Hans/John Segrist and his wife Anna Wildberger.

This list informs us that Francis Grove** was taxed for 200 acres of land, two horses and two cows in 1779.

[Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Tax and Exoneration, 1768-1801 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Tax & Exoneration Lists, 1762–1794. Series No. 4.61; Records of the Office of the Comptroller General, RG-4. Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.]

And he was counted in the 1786 Pennsylvania Septennial Census.

[Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Septennial Census, 1779-1863 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: Septennial Census Returns, 1779–1863. Box 1026, microfilm, 14 rolls. Records of the House of Representatives. Records of the General Assembly, Record Group 7. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, PA.]

There's a 1790 federal census record that may refer to him, but I'm not convinced because it's the enumeration for a township in Lancaster County and I don't know that he had any connection to any place but York County and I wasn't able to locate him in the 1800 U.S. Census.

But he's listed in the 1810 U.S. Census.

[Year: 1810; Census Place: York, York, Pennsylvania; Roll: 57; Page: 157; Image: 00168; Family History Library Film: 0193683. Ancestry.com. 1810 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Third Census of the United States, 1810. (NARA microfilm publication M252, 71 rolls). Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

On Friday I'll take a look at his will which was probated in 1812.

["Pennsylvania Probate Records, 1683-1994," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G99B-V4RD?cc=1999196&wc=9PM8-4WG%3A268493601%2C270673301 : 3 July 2014), York > Wills 1803-1818 vol L-N > image 248 of 800; county courthouses, Pennsylvania.]

*The exact date of their wedding isn't known but their oldest child was born in October of 1760.
**Note how his name has been anglicized in this record, although in the list of wills for York County his surname was written as Groff.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Groves

The young man in this photograph is my maternal third great uncle Levi Groves (1856-1891), who appears to have lived his entire life in Jones County, Iowa. His parents were my third great grandparents Frederick Groves* (1812-1882) and Leah Bixler (1813-1900) who were originally from Maryland but met and married in Ohio, finally moving to Iowa in about 1846. There is no evidence that Levi ever married and he's buried in Forest Hill Cemetery.

[The Anamosa Eureka, Thursday, July 2, 1891.

Source: Digital Archives of Jones County Genealogical Society. ]

[Both images above courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

*Some records list his name as Grove. His ancestors first appeared in mid-18th century Pennsylvania with an German-speaking immigrant who came from Raffz, Zurich, Switzerland.surnamed Grof or Graf.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.