Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 Hello Mumma researchers, cousins, family and friends - [If you don't care to receive future Bulletins of this type, please send me a message and I will remove you from this distribution list. These messages are sent out on a random basis when I feel there is something useful to communicate to everyone.] READABILITY To make sure this Bulletin is readable by the maximum number of different computer systems, it is transmitted in plain text, without embedded formatting. This message was composed in 10 point monospaced Courier font. Any necessary indenting, centering and columns was done with spaces, not tabs. It is currently being sent to over 650 addresses as "blind carbon copies". This is why your name does not appear on the address line. If you have difficulty viewing or printing this message, please let me know. WEB SITE & ISP CHANGES I have added about 15 megs of new files to the web site. This would have pushed me over my limit of 40 megs, so I moved the files to a new server at my ISP, so I now can store up to 100 megs of data. Because of this change, my ISP had to notify the INTERNET webmasters of the change and automatic address change programs need to run on all ISP's. It appears that most ISP's detected and made the alterations within a few minutes. I have had one report from one person not being able to run the search engine. If any of you have problems accessing the web site or using the search engine, please let me know. Also, I find a few people are still using an old e-mail address that I had a few years ago. It will "die" one of these days. Check your address book and verify my e-mail address as doug@mumma.org. Also, my Home Page is http://www.mumma.org and the Mumma page begins at http://www.mumma.org/mumma.html. DATABASE CHANGES A new database was uploaded to the web site on Wednesday, April 25, 2001 and it now includes 46,424 individuals/descendants. Some of the additions, changes and corrections were: o A cousin marriage link now exists between the descendants of immigrants Leonard Mumma and Jacob Mumma. Keith Mumaw recently reminded me that he was related to both Leonard and Jacob. This link had also been suggested to me through data previously supplied by Helen Battleson, Yvonne Oliphant and Leonard Showalter. Careful examination of all their data confirms the link which exists through the marriage of Jacob's son, Frederick and his daughter, Elizabeth who married David Martin. Their daughter Frances married Henry Shank. Two of their children, Nancy and Mary Shank married descendants of George Muma, the son of George Anthony Mumma, son of immigrant Leonard. o Other additions and corrections were supplied by many people, too numerous to mention individually. 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 Internet database are contained within the various "Mumma Trees". If any of you can be of assistance linking the various trees together, your help would be appreciated. The cousin marriages between descendants of Leonard, Jacob and Christian Mumma, now prevent me from easily determining the number of people in each of their trees as everyone is summed in a single tree DATABASE TREE INFORMATION Indiv's Desc's REF# Top Person in a particular tree + notes ------- ------ ---- --------------------------------------- 39920 23180 2 Leonard /Mumma/ b. bet 1690-1700 (1732 immigrant) * * 1 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1685-1690 (1731 immigrant) 1237 825 U21 Jacob /Muma/ b. abt. 1750 (Canadian Mumas) 1133 747 4 Peter /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1721 (1748 immigrant) 928 631 U7 David /Muma/ b. ABT. 1760 (Mewmaw spelling) 592 345 U15 Frederick /Moomau/ b. 1 Apr 1796 (Moomau family) * * U8 Christian /Mumma/ b. 29 Aug 1791 (Clark Co., OH) 525 358 U28 John /Mumma/ b. 1790 (m. Catharine Ament) 460 291 U30 Frederick /Mumma/ b. ABT 1770 305 199 U23 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1811 (Fulton Co. PA Mummas) 303 202 U33 George /Moomey/ b. abt. 1750 (Moomey family) 282 181 E1-K1 Wilhelm /Momma/ (European Mommas & Kettenis families) 187 132 U32 John Haup /Moma/ b. Aug 1791 (Augusta, VA) 155 97 U24 George W. /Mumma/ b. 1832 (Fulton County Mummas) 122 85 E2 Leonhard /Momma/ b. 1580 (European Mommas) 54 30 U27 John /Mumma/ (Germantown, Ohio family) 50 25 U22 John /Mumaw/ b. ABT. 1787 (Luzerne Co., PA) 44 22 U36 Barbara /Mumma/ b. Sep 27, 1768 (m. Henry Strickler) 32 23 U41 William F. Moomaw/ b. abt 1847 (Mineral Co., WV) 31 16 U25 James B. /Mumma/ b. 1839 (Fulton County family) 21 13 U43 Heinrich /Muma - Mumah/ b 1787 Swamp Church records 20 12 U33 Jeremiah /Mummah/ b. ABT 1830 (possibly York Co., PA) 10 5 U31 Christian /Mumma/ (Baltimore, MD) 10 5 U37 Thomas Burr /Mumma/ b. ~ 1890 in Missouri 2 0 - A /.Hog/ b. 1 Jan 1900 (my test individual) 1 0 3 Johan Lorentz Momma, d. 1752 (1747 immigrant) ----- ----- 46424 27424 * because of a cousin marriages between branches, all of the descendants of Jacob Mumma and Christian Mumma are included with the totals for Leonard Mumma. SURNAME FREQUENCY IN THE DATABASE Mumma[2709], Moomaw[1889], Mumaw[1025], Muma[355], Mumau[319], Momma[233], Moomau[191], Mummau[168], Moomey[153], Mumaugh[118], Mummah[114], Mewmaw[52], Mumah[54], Moma[49], Mummaw[17], Mooma[7], Mommal[1] MUMMA WEB SITE MESSAGE BOARD I recently discovered that the Website Message Board was "broken" and it did not allow people to add new messages or reply to old ones. That problem has now been fixed. MUMMA DOCUMENT ARCHIVE I have now created a MUMMA Document Archive. The purpose of this archive will be to store copies of transcriptions, translations and scanned images of a variety of private, civil and religious documents. You can reach the archive index from a new hyperlink on the main Mumma page, or use this direct address http://www.mumma.org/archives/archives.htm One of the first things that I placed in the archive are copies of the 17 Moomaw Newsletters that Margaret Dieringer published from 1983 until Bob Moomaw's book was published in 1990. Margaret provided a wonderful service publishing this newsletter and it served as a communication tool to help Bob Moomaw when he revised the Moomaw book originally published by H.Warner Kloepfer in 1965. Since few people received copies of these newsletters and because they contain such useful and interesting material, I have made them available for downloading and/or printing from the web site. These files are in Adobe Acrobat format which is available for free if you don't have it installed on your computer. There is a link from the archive to the Adobe web site. The acrobat format is used because documents can be shared between PC's, MAC's and other operating systems with out loss of formatting, etc. These newsletter files are very large because the original pages were not that clear and I wanted people to be able to view and print "readable" copies of the documents. They were scanned at 300 dpi. I will do some additional testing at lower scan resolutions to evaluate the quality-image size tradeoff. MUMMA AND INDIAN ANCESTRY From time to time I receive inquiries from people who believe their branches of the MUMMA family have Indian blood/ancestry. I believe one or two Mumma men may have married Indian women, but I can't remember which ones. If any of you can confirm or show verifiable Indian ancestry, I would appreciate hearing about it and I will share it on the web site. ARTICLE ABOUT GEORGE ANTHONY MUMMA 1st WIFE PUBLISHED An article I wrote about George Anthony Mumma's newly discovered 1st wife, Alice Baughman, was published in Volume 24, Number 1, January 2001 issue of the Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage. In the article I fully describe the evidence I discovered which led to this startling and unexpected discovery. If you have difficulty finding that article, it is available for viewing in the new archives or go directly to http://www.mumma.org/archives/IMA.pdf This article is in Adobe Acrobat format to insure proper formatting. MUMMA MEN WHO SERVED IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR Also from time to time, people have asked about the various Mumma ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. Based on the service of these "Mumma" Patriots, a number of women have joined the "Daughters of the American Revolution" (DAR) and men the "Sons of the American Revolution" (SAR) or "Sons of the Revolution" (SR). In several cases, lineages shown on the original applications are simply in error. In most cases, it is quite difficult to clearly identify and associate the meager information contained in Pennsylvania Archives and other documents to an identifiable Mumma descendant. Some of the problems are similar given names, such as "John", "George", "Jacob", or "Henry" all living in close proximity in Lancaster County during the time period of the War (1775-1783). We also have a large group of these early Mummas who followed the Mennonite faith and their religion would have precluded them from actively serving in the Army. Some did, however, support the troops with food and supplies and others paid "substitutes" to serve for them. I would like to create a collection of documents related to the various Mummas who served in the Revolutionary War and make them available to everyone through the website Archives. I have three samples of DAR and SR (Sons of the Revolution) applications in the Archives. The records are interesting since they originate from a brother and his two sisters. The fellow, Irwin Johnston Muma [218352], connects with my line of ancestors so I have a close interest and knowledge in his lineage. He makes one glaring error in his application submitted and accepted in 1918. He mis-identifies his great grandfather's name and calls him "Christian Mumma", whereas his great grandfather was "Henry Mumma". But he didn't let that deter him and he used the service record of Christian Mumma who, I believe died in the War. He was admitted to the Sons of the Revolution. Then in 1920, his sisters join the DAR, and reference his SR application, but I believe they discovered their brother's error, so they decided to use the listed patriot, Henry Mumma, as their ancestor. Their ancestor is a Henry Mumma, but somehow the examiner added a wife to Henry by the name of "Hertzler". This is wrong because it was Henry's brother who marred Hertzler. Again, no one seemed to worry about these kind of mistakes and these two applications have become the foundations for all women who join the DAR under HENRY MUMMA. A little scary! Because of all these errors, I immediately discounted the Henry listed in the Pennsylvania archives as being my Henry, but a quick review of a few documents suggested that the "Henry Mumma" actually sent a substitute, so it still might be my Henry. More work is needed. Anyway, I would appreciate it if any of you have copies of original applications and documents about Mumma men who served in the Revolutionary War to please send me copies. The original applications are the most useful as they contain the detailed lineages, including cross outs, marginal notes and errors. I will add these applications to the Archives. MOMMA OWNED SHIPS SAIL TO AMERICA IN THE MID 1600'S Thanks to an Internet search by Udo Momma, we now learn that several ships owned by Guilliaem Momma of Holland came to America in the mid 1600's. The source of this data was DE SCHEEPVAART EN HANDEL VAN DE NEDERLANDSE REPUBLIEK OP NIEUW-NEDERLAND 1609-1675 by A. Jacobs 1989. The URL is: http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/index.shtml 1) "GELDERSCHE BLOM" (captain Symen Claesen, owned by Wouter van Twiller and Guilliaem Momma), left Texel Dec. 25th 1656, arrived in New Amsterdam about March 19th 1657 with 11 colonists for Nieuwer-Amstel. 2) "ST. JAN BAPTIST" (captain Symen Claesz., owner Guilliaem Momma) left Amsterdam after Dec. 18rh 1657, arrived in New Amsterdam before June 3rd 1658 with 9 colonists. 3) "ST. JAN BAPTISTE" (captain Jan Bergen, owner Guiliaem Momma) left Amsterdam after May 9th 1661, arrived in New Amsterdam Aug. 6th 1661 with 38 colonists. Udo was wondering whether this would suggest that some Mommas arrived much earlier in America. The Mommas of Holland and Sweden were very wealthy and there would have been no reason to migrate to the primitive wilds of the New World at this time. I think it unlikely that any Mumma men arrived prior to Jacob or Leonard, but it is alway possible. We certainly nave no documentary evidence of any MUMMA men arriving earlier. MUMMA SURNAME DNA PROJECT Many items are associated with this exciting DNA project and I feel very remiss in not communicating with everyone more often, but I will try to catch up. ********* AUDIOCAST on DNA Sciences Web Site - Thursday, May 3rd 2001 from 11-12 noon Pacific Time (2-3pm Eastern). http://www.dna.com I have been asked to participate in a "live" on-line discussion about the use of DNA testing to trace genealogical roots. I am not sure of the exact format and methods, but apparently people can submit questions to the panelists who will then answer online the questions immediately. It should prove interesting. There is some information about it on the web site listed above. ********* US News and World Reports Article - I was interviewed for a US News and World Reports article that was published on January 29, 2001. This article is entitled "Tracing Your Genetic Roots" and was a general article about this new and exciting technology. Since our MUMMA Surname DNA Study was one of the first significant privately funded project, it has become a benchmark study. If you would like to read the article, it is still available on-line at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010129/migration.htm I am briefly mentioned and quoted in the last paragraph. ********** Livermore Tri-Valley Herald Newspaper Article After I gave a talk at my local genealogical society meeting in Livermore, the local newspaper ran an article about the project. This article can be viewed at: http://www.trivalleyherald.com/default.asp?puid=260&spuid=260&indx=683150&art icle=on ********** Status of the MUMMA surname DNA project I won't go into great detail in this newsletter about the current results of the DNA project as you can go the DNA page and read about it yourself. As a reminder, that page is at: http://www.mumma.org/DNA.htm Over 3000 people have visited that page since it was posted last year, but the bulk of the visits have been since January when the results were displayed. I am very proud of our results and they have become a "benchmark" for all studies that are following. A quick summary, for those who haven't checked the web site, is we have established a distinctive MUMMA fingerprint that is used to determine whether a man descends from the MUMMA surname line. We discovered that the MUMMA families of America and the MOMMA families of Germany share a common ancestor, thus confirming what has been suggested for a long time. The tests are not sufficiently sophisticated, however, to allow us to identify exactly which ancestor is the common link, but we now know for certain that a link or links exist and that is very valuable information. Another interesting result since the last update was the results from a Reenstjerna participant. As you may know, some of the early Mommas migrated from Germany to Holland and finally to Sweden where they became very important in the economy and commerce of that country. They were in copper and iron mining, shipping and financial areas. They were so important in the economic development of Sweden during this time period that the King of Sweden "ennobled" them in 1669 and gave them the title of "Reenstierna". Two of the brothers changed their surnames and have been known by that name ever since. A fellow who descends from this Swedish branch of the Momma/Reenstierna family participated in the DNA surname study and we confirmed that he too descends from the Momma family. What is most impressive is there are 25 generations between the German Momma participants and this Swedish Reenstjerna. Also from the results we clearly showed that the MUMMA families of America do not descend from the MUMME families of Germany. Likewise we do not descend from the small group of people in Estonia who also spell their surname as MUMMA. One surprise to date has been the fact that the one MOOMEY participant did not match the MUMMA fingerprint so we know he is not related, but we need several other men with the MOOMEY surname before we can make any definitive statements about the MOOMEY family in general. ********** Future DNA Testing Plans There are two directions continuing for the DNA project. The first is to continue testing the various "unconnected" trees and determine whether or not a connection exists between these trees and the main MUMMA branches. Currently I am awaiting the results from participants with the surnames of MUMAW, MUMAH, and MUMMEY. It is interesting that we finally have our first MUMAW participant even though this is the third most frequently used spelling of the surname. We don't expect any surprises from this analysis, but it will help broaden our knowledge of the MUMMA fingerprint. The MUMAH participant is interesting in the fact we believe this person descends from the immigrant, Peter Mumma [4}. In addition, this person is connected as a Mumma descendant through his maternal side to Jacob Mumma [1]. It would be very helpful if would could find another descendant or two from Peter's line. The last person we are awaiting results is a MUMMEY descendant. Again this will be most useful data as there has been much speculation as to whether this surname spelling shares a common ancestry with the MUMMA family. I will be surprised if they match, but the tests will be most revealing and should help establish the future research directions for all MUMMEY descendants. The second area of testing is an attempt to find refine and extend the precision of this testing technique. Additional loci are being tested to determine whether they show mutations for the MUMMA/MOMMA family. In our initial tests, 12 loci (or markers) were measured and a solid MUMMA/MOMMA fingerprint established. Four of the previous participants submitted additional DNA samples for further analysis. The four selected individuals were one of Leonard Mummas descendants (me), a descendant of Jacob Mumma, and one Momma descendant from Germany. These first three individuals all show the same exact "fingerprint". There were no variations in the readings from each loci. By testing additional loci, I hope to discover one loci that shows a "mutation" or different value. It is very interesting because the three of us cannot be connected by conventional documentation, only DNA testing. The fourth individual is the fellow with the Reenstjerna surname and his fingerprint only differs from the "standard" MUMMA fingerprint by one numeric value on one loci. As I mentioned, this Reenstjerna and the Momma participant can be linked together, but there is a 25 generation spread of ancestors between them. I have submitted these four DNA samples to Dr. Mark Jobling at the University of Leicester University in England. Dr. Jobling was one of the primary researchers who worked on the President Jefferson - Sally Hemings paternity issue. He will be measuring 17 markers and MSY1. MSY1 is a special minisatellite marker that he found especially useful for the Jefferson/Hemings study. Additional DNA samples have been sent to Dr. Scott Woodward's laboratory at Brigham Young University (BYU). Some of you may have heard of the large testing program that BYU is conducting through out the United States and the rest of the world. They hope to obtain DNA samples from 100,000 people. For that program, the participants will learn nothing about their results for many years. They are doing a "special MUMMA" paid project for me and they will be providing us with immediate results. I expect they will be measuring about 16 markers and we are hoping for results about mid May. Finally, Dr. Hammer at the University of Arizona, the laboratory where our main program samples are analyzed, has agreed to take the DNA from the four special participants and submit them for additional testing using his advanced testing techniques. Needless to say, I am excited about the potential results from these additional tests as it will likely guide the direction for our future testing techniques. *********** Additional DNA Volunteers Needed! With all of that said, we could certainly use additional participants to help fill-in the data in the various trees. We have only had 3 descendants of immigrant Jacob participate and Jacob represents a major MUMMA line. Likewise, we have only had one MOOMAU and one person from the immigrant Peter Mumma. An additional MOOMEY participant is really needed because the results from the one MOOMEY participant has shown HE does not share a connection to the MUMMA family. In some cases, entire branches are completely unrepresented. Before we can make a broader statement about the MOOMEY family in general, we would need several other MOOMEY results that support the non- connection to the MUMMAs. If I was a MOOMEY researcher, I would jump at the chance to clearly determine whether or not I should spend any additional time or money looking at MUMMA records. The only requirement to participate is to be MALE, have the MUMMA (or similar spelling) surname, provide a DNA sample and a Mumma genealogy, if not listed in the MUMMA database and $165, the cost of the DNA analysis. For those of you who don't feel you can afford the cost of an analysis, the families of several previous participants have pooled their funds together so that a single person doesn't have to come up with the full amount. Anyway, if any of you are interested in supporting this project, go to this page and sign up. http://www.mumma.org/dna_signup.htm Sorry about the length of this message. It is much longer than I desired or expected. I need to send out shorter messages more often. I hope you find this information and the web site useful. Doug