Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 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.] I am sorry that there has been such a long time period between Updates. The usual excuses!! I did post a revised database to the web site in January, but neglected to notify everyone. I posted a new database on March 27th and I believe that I am up to date with all the changes that people have submitted, including e-mail address changes. If you submitted changes, revisions or additions and they do not appear in this update or are incorrect, please let me know and I will attempt to correct the problem. All of the people in the database are contained within 18 Trees as follows: Tree Information Indiv's Desc's REF# Top Person in a particular tree & notes ------- ------ ---- --------------------------------------- 34574 22263 2 Leonard /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1694 (Original 1732 immigrant) 3657 2412 1 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1685-1690 (Original 1731 immigrant) 1191 797 U21 Samuel /Muma/ b. 10 Sep 1784 (Canadian Mumas) 1126 747 4 Peter /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1721 (Original 1748 immigrant) 670 455 U7 David /Muma/ b. ABT. 1760 (Mewmaw spelling) * * U8 Christian /Mumma/ b. 29 Aug 1791 (Clark Co., OH) 460 291 U30 Frederick /Mumma/ b. ABT 1770 421 249 U15 Frederick /Moomau/ b. 1 Apr 1796 (Moomau family) 406 281 U28 John /Mumma/ b. 1790 (m. Catharine Ament) 281 181 E1-K1 Clais /von Kettenis/ (European Mommas and Kettenis) 187 132 U32 John Haup Moma b. Aug 1791 (Augusta, VA) 137 96 U23 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1811 (Fulton Co. PA Mummas) 122 85 E2 Leonhard /Momma/ b. 1580 (European Mommas) 54 30 U27 John /Mumma/ (Germantown, Ohio Mumma family) 48 24 U22 John /Mumaw/ b. ABT. 1787 15 11 U25 Veryle Leroy /Mumma/ b. 1 May 1921 10 5 U31 Christian /Mumma/ (Baltimore, MD) 2 0 - A /.Hog/ b. 1 Jan 1900 (my test individual) 1 0 3 Johan Lorentz Momma, d. 1752 (original 1747 immigrant) ------- ------ 43363 27736 * Note: Because of a "cousin marriage" in this tree, the analysis program sums this branch's totals in the Leonard Mumma tree. SURNAME FREQUENCY IN THE DATABASE Mumma[2508], Moomaw[1848], Mumaw[968], Muma[331], Mumau[319], Momma[230], Moomau[161], Mummau[157], Mumaugh[114], Mummah[94], Mewmaw[49], Moma[48], Mumah[40], Mummaw[17], Mooma[6] ********************************* Bernhard Momma update In update #10, I talked about the discovery of a Johann Bernhard Momma who came to America from Wickwrathberg, Germany in 1847 to fight in the Mexican- American War. If you recall, Udo Momma discovered some papers in Wickwrathberg that indicated Bernhard died in Vera Cruz Mexico, only a few months after enlisting in the U.S. Army in Pittsburgh, PA. I tried to obtain his 'service' record from the National Archives, without success. I tried again, this time requesting his 'pension' and 'land grant' records. This time I was successful and obtained a rather thick file. A summary of the informations shows that: 1) His wife and children remained in Germany. 2) His wife was two months pregnant when he left for America and she give birth to a daughter only two months before he died. 3) He died of disease in Mexico. The war was essentially over when he died and this again demonstrates that many, many soldiers die of diseases and infections, not bullets. 4) His wife applied for pension and a land grant, several years after he died. She was probably not aware of her rights to his pension immediately after he died. 5) Before she received any money, she died and then new papers are filed for the one child who is under age and entitled to the father's pension. This was the child he never saw. Again, it was an interesting drama to uncover and follow. It would be fun to discover some of his descendants and present them with these records. Unfortunately, because of strict German privacy laws, it is much more difficult to track down living people in Germany. ********************************* The MUMMA DNA Surname Project What I would like to talk to you about now is a new and exciting project to identify whether or not the immigrants Jacob, Leonard and Peter were brothers, cousins or not related at all. And if they weren't related, to which of these groups do the descendants of Christian Mumma (1791-1866) or Jacob Muma(1755-?) "Canadian Mummas" or Frederick Moomau (1796-1845) belong? We also have the nagging question as to whether the American Mumma clan descend from the German Momma families. The list of unanswered questions about the "unidentified" family trees grows almost daily. Knowing these answers would help focus our research with these "unconnected" families and our European investigations. Well now there exists a proven technique that will answer these questions!! One of the more recent celebrated cases was the question as to whether or not President Thomas Jefferson fathered a slave child by Sally Hemings. Through "Y" chromosome testing, they were clearly able to show that Sally did have a child fathered by a Jefferson, but these tests did not allow them to determine which Jefferson. Likewise another study was reported on by Bryan Sykes of England who sampled a large group of men with the Sykes surname. In his study he tested 61 men with the Sykes surname and discovered that there was a clear DNA pattern in the Y-chromosome haplotype distribution that was unique to the Sykes surname. These are all powerful results that would be very useful to MUMMA research. I have posted more detailed information and a program proposal that can be found at http://www.mumma.org/DNA.htm complete with hyperlinks to other resources. I invite you to visit that page and some of the links. So where do we go from here to study the MUMMA surname and spelling variations to determine whether or not the various family groups are related? We only need two things. One is a group of men with the MUMMA (or alternate spellings) surname who are willing to provide a DNA sample obtained by a simple swabbing of the inside of a person's cheek. You perform the test yourself. While it would be nice to include women in the test sample, only men carry the Y-chromosome that is used in this identification process. The second thing we need is a way to fund the project. While it might be possible to find a university who would be willing to underwrite the testing costs, it would probably extend the time before which we would obtain results to beyond a year or longer. While I will continue to pursue that avenue, I would really like to obtain some results on a much quicker time schedule, like in a few months!! Unfortunately, Y-chromosome testing, which is used in paternity cases, is not inexpensive and costs between $200-250 per sample, depending on the number of people who are tested at one time. I hope that some of you also feel that this surname information is of sufficient importance that you would be willing to participate in such a test program and fund your own sample analysis. In order to obtain a feeling for your interest, positive or negative, I would appreciate feedback from you indicating your willingness to participate and your possible ability to underwrite your analysis cost or maybe some smaller cost number. Just send me a message at DNA@mumma.org and express yourself. I am so excited about the prospect of the test results that I wish I could underwrite the entire project. Some of you have expressed appreciation for all of the hard work that I have put into the Mumma Web Site. Well here is a way you can repay that appreciation. As I mentioned, only men can participate and I hope we can also get participants from the "unidentified" groups such as the Canadian Mumas, the Moomeys, Mummeys, Mommas, and several of the other groups who don't link back directly to Jacob, Leonard or Peter. Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you about you interest in the DNA Y-chromosome test program. E-mail me at DNA@mumma.org Doug P.S. I expect to issue another update within a few weeks to update you on the feedback response to the DNA testing program as well as present some rather startling news. From my recent investigations, it appears that George Anthony Mumma(1722-1786) had another wife and child, prior to his marriage to Barbara Weber. As soon as some confirming documentation arrives from Lancaster, I will present to you the evidence for his first wife. 3