Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 Hello Mumma-Moomaw researchers, cousins, family and friends - [If you don't care to receive future updates of this type, please send me a message and I will remove you from this distribution list.] DATABASE STATUS - I uploaded a revised Mumma database to the Web site today, March 15th. It now contains a little over 40,800 individuals. Some of the significant changes are as follows: I discovered that John Mumma, b. about 1836 and married Elizabeth Hertzler, was attached to his uncle instead of his father. He and his descendants are now correctly located under Jacob Mumma, b. 14 Sep 1809 and his first wife, Elizabeth Nissley. John's corrected reference number is [111323]. Added the descendants of John Mumma [11131] and Jacob Mumma [11132] that were contained in the pamphlet entitled "Genealogy of one Branch of the Jacob Muma Family", written in 1970 by Ellen Landis Mumma [11131413]. Ellen is now deceased. Added the descendants of Frederick Mumma (b. abt 1770) who was listed in Samuel Hertzler Mumma's 1962 book. This particular branch is listed as "unidentified tree U30", primarily because the attachment of this line is not certain. It would be appreciated if anyone can assist in identifying the father of this Frederick. Samuel was also not certain of Frederick's parentage when he wrote his book. All of the people in the database are contained within 18 Trees as follows: Tree Information Indiv's Desc's REF# Top Person ------- ------ ---- ----- ---------- 32096 21196 2 Leonard /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1694 (Original 1732 immigrant) 3418 2272 1 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1685-1690 (Original 1731 immigrant) 1179 793 U21 Samuel /Muma/ b. 10 Sep 1784 (Canadian Mumas) 1052 709 4 Peter /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1721 (Original immigrant) 670 455 U7 David /Muma/ b. ABT. 1760 (Mewmaw spelling) 622 408 U8 Christian /Mumma/ b. 29 Aug 1791 (Clark Co., OH) 451 286 U30 Frederick /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1770 416 247 U15 Frederick /Moomau/ b. 1 Apr 1796 (Moomau family) 402 279 U28 John /Mumma/ b. 1790 (m. Catharine Ament) 167 101 E1-K1 Clais /von Kettenis/ (European Mommas and Kettenis) 108 77 U23 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1810-1811 (Fulton Co. PA Mummas) 79 53 E2 Leonard /Momma/ b. 1580 (European Mommas) 54 30 U27 John /Mumma/ (Germantown, Ohio Mumma family) 46 23 U22 John /Mumaw/ b. ABT. 1787 15 10 U24 David /Mumma/ (Fulton Co., PA Mummas) 14 7 U3 David /Mumma/ (Senator Mumma family from Harrisburg) 12 11 U25 Veryle Leroy /Mumma/ b. 1 May 1921 2 0 - A /.Hog/ b. 1 Jan 1900 (my test individual) 1 0 3 Johan Lorentz Momma, d. 1752 (original 1747 immigrant) ------- ------ 40804 26957 Database Search tip. I would like to point out that the search engine capability used with the Mumma database is very powerful and more useful than the one built into FTM. For example. If you try to find the John Mumma (born before 1836) that I mentioned in the beginning of this message, by typing in his name, the search engine will find more than 100 John Mummas. The search engine will allow you to include dates or place locations along with people's names, so if you want to quickly find the record of this John Mumma, simply enter "JOHN MUMMA 1836" because he is listed in the database as being born about 1836. Now, the correct John will be displayed. As another example, you can scan for all John's who were born or died in Ohio in 1850 by typing in "JOHN OH 1850" and this will yield all of the people who meet that criteria. This is why it is helpful to submit to the database as much information as is known about a person, even if we only know in what state they were born or died. Mummey and Muma Web sites to visit - I would like to let you know that there are two additional web sites that you might want to visit if your are looking either for Mummey descendants or the Muma descendants who migrated to Canada. The URL for the Mummey Web site is http://www.fruitjar.org/Mummey/. It is maintained by Richard Cole who lives in Muncie, Indiana. We do not know whether this is an independent Mummey line or whether is connects to one of the existing Mumma trees. Richard and I are beginning to exchange message to try and sort out the early Mummey beginnings. I will not add this Mummey branch to my database until we prove conclusively that they are Mumma descendants. The URL for the Canadian Muma Web site is http://www.mumafamily.de/. It is maintained by David Laird Muma who lives in Nürnberg, Germany. His database listing is much more extensive than what I have attached to the Mumma database as Unidentified tree U21. Again we have no knowledge whether or not the Canadian Mumas descend from one of the early Mumma branches. If you are a Canadian Muma, I recommend that you visit David's site. Signatures of the Immigrants - Immigrants who arrived in Philadelphia between 1727 and 1776 were required to register in the Philadelphia Courthouse and pledge oaths of allegiance to the King of England. Copies of these signatures can be found in the book, "German Immigrants" by Strassburger & Hikke, 1955. I have scanned the four "Mumma" immigrants signatures and you can view them in the database. Their signatures are displayed instead of a photograph of them, for the obvious reason photography wasn't invented during their lifetimes. I really considerate it a thrill and treat to view their original 1700's signatures. In some cases, this is all we know about some immigrants. These signatures I believe are quite instructive and provide clues as to the origins and relationships of our ancestors. When you go to these pages, you can print out the page for closer examination. To find their pages quickly, enter the following search criteria. For Jacob Mumma who arrived 1731, enter "Jacob Mumma 1770" For Leonard Mumma who arrived 1732, enter "Lenhart Mumma" For Johann Lorentz Momma who arrived 1747, enter "Johann Lorentz Momma" For Peter Mumma who arrived 1748, enter "Peter Mumma 1721" You can also examine all of the signatures by going to http://www.mumma.org/signatures.htm where all of the signatures are displayed on a single page. Here are some things you should look for as you examine the signatures. In one of Leonard's signature and both of Jacob's, there is a mark above the letter "U". Many people have misinterpreted these marks to be Umlauts, but they are not. This mark, which is generally and upward curve above the letter "U", is only found in the written German language. It is used to clearly identify the letter "u" from being misinterpreted as an "n" or "m" which look almost identical, especially with sloppy handwriting. It is found extensively in German Church records and American church records that were written in German. I have been trying to find if there is a special name for this letter without much success. One person called it U-bogen. "Bogen" in German means "curve" or "arc" so U-bogen seems to fit nicely. I wanted to point this out to folks so you can be on the lookout for it when you search original records. Naturally, courthouse records won't show it because these records were written by Englishmen and, as we know, that shorthand notation doesn't exist in the written English language. While we are talking about shorthand notations, watch for what is called the "bar-m". In many cases, German writers would use this shorthand notation when they encountered a double m, as in the case of the name, Mumma. To save space, they would simply write a single "m" and place a straight line over the top of it to signify that it is really a double "mm". Again, the bar-M only exists in handwriting, not the printed text. Therefore, you can easily see how the Mumma name was interpreted as being spelled Muma if an Englishman saw it written by a German with the bar-m, especially if his penmanship was lacking. It is one of the reasons that we see Mumma spelled as Muma in many, many early records. An example of a bar-M can be viewed by looking at Johann Lorentz Momma's signature. And now for my own personal assessment of the signatures. You may have totally different assessments and I would welcome any comments: 1) Jacob Mumma's signature is clearly written as MUMMA and he repeats it twice for both oaths that he signed. The U-bogen tells me that he didn't consider the second letter to be a "o", but clearly a "u". The last letter of the signature appears to definitely be an "a". Since he was able to sign his name, we know him to be fairly literate. 2) Lenhart (Leonard) Mumma's signature is fairly similar to that of Jacob's, except he writes a sloppy U-bogen in one signature and leaves it off of the other one. It is this sloppy U-bogen that has led several people, including myself, to consider it to be an umlaut "u" or "ü". Again, the spelling is quite clear to be MUMMA and because he signed his name, he too was literate. I find it rather striking that both Leonard's and Jacob's signatures are remarkably similar, almost as if they had the same teacher. Because of the same spelling of the surname and similarity of signing, I strongly feel that Jacob and Leonard were brothers or close cousins. Many people have suggested that because Jacob following of the Mennonite faith and Leonard following the teachings of the Reformed/Lutheran church, this would preclude them from being brothers. In a future update, I will address the subject of their religious convictions and ways to reconcile this potential dilemma. 3) Johann Lorentz Momma's signature is significant in the fact that it is clearly spelled as MOMMA (note the bar-M) and not MUMMA. Johann died in 1752, only 5 years after arriving in America. From a court record regarding his estate, it was clearly stated that he had a wife and children, and that he had a brother living in Lancaster County, however we have not been able to identify or trace this brother, wife or any of his descendants. Is he a brother or close relative of Jacob or Leonard Mumma? I think not. I would lean towards him descending from one of the Momma families of Aachen, Stolberg, or the Netherlands. This name does not appear in any of the Momma records that have been uncovered so far. 4) Unfortunately, Peter Mumma was illiterate and could not sign his own name so the clerk signed the name "Mumma" and Peter then entered his mark "P". I think this record tells us quite a bit, however. It says he was the only one of the four who was illiterate, even though he came to America last. If he was closely related to the other three Mumma immigrants, I would have expected him to also be literate. However, since the two clerks clearly signed the name MUMMA, I will assume that Peter probably had the name written down on a piece of paper that he handed the clerk, maybe a letter written by an American relative. It is unlikely that an Englishman would spell the pronounced name of MUMMA with that spelling. Mumma wasn't a common name in Philadelphia. If Peter only pronounced the name, I would have expected something closer to MOOMAW being written by the clerk. In fact, it was spelled the same way by two different clerks. Therefore, I feel he is related to Jacob and Leonard, but probably as a more distant cousin. If any of you have comments or information to add to this subject, I would appreciate hearing from you. ON-GOING PROJECTS - "Records & Data Archive" I am slowly working on this project and still designing the layout in my head. It should be an interesting area of the web site. - "Ships passenger lists - villages of emigration". Since it has been demonstrated many times that the early immigrants traveled to America with relatives and neighbors, identifying from which villages the various passengers came can be very useful. Not an easy task, however. I have discovered that a lady by the name of Annette K. Burgert has written a number of articles and booklets for the Pennsylvania German Society about the emigration of people from specific villages of the Pfalz. She has been very thorough going through the village church records, passenger lists, wills and other documents to insure accuracy. In this manner, she has been able to identify when and on what ship various villagers immigrated to America. Fortunately she has studied a number of villages around Grosskarlbach and a number of villagers from the two books I looked at were on the same ships with Jacob and Leonard. I have not found copies of all of her booklets. I would appreciate it if any of you have copies, or access to copies of her books, if you could extract the immigrant/ship information for me. It is actually fairly quick to read through the booklets hunting for the specific ships names upon which our immigrants arrived. A PLEA ---- I would like to ask all of you to please contact me when you find errors or potential errors in the database, especially with our ancestors prior to 1800. Even if you are not confident of your evidence, let me know and we can include conflicting data and information for others to review and make comments. The more evidence you have, however, the better. Remember, just because it is in the database doesn't mean it is correct!!! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Douglas M. Mumma 2123 Farmington Place Livermore, California 94550 Telephone:(925) 447-5164 E-mail doug@mumma.org Home Page http://www.mumma.org