Johannes Wetzler (1750-1839) lived in Lebanon, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and married Elisabeth Muller (b. ca. 1774). He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Descendants lived in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, California, Virginia, Delaware, Massachusetts, Washington, Indiana, and elsewhere.
Johann Peter Klinger was born 3 November 1773 in Reading, Pennsylvania. His parents were Johann Philip Klinger (1723-1811) and Eva Elisabeth Beilstein (1730-ca. 1815). He married Catharina Steinbruch, daughter of Adam Steinbrecher and Anna Margaretha Hoffman, in about 1791 in Lykens Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. They had eleven children. Ancestors, descendants and relatives lived mainly in Germany, Pennsylvania and Indiana.
James L. Meng is a retired labor relations arbitrator who was born in the mid-American steel town of Granite City, Illinois. His parents were born in Freeburg and Newton, Illinois and were active civic leaders in their community. In his formative years, James met several occasions that comprised a very interesting youth. After graduating from college, he joined the Missouri Air National Guard where he was awarded the Airman’s Medal for Valor. Afterwards he continued his education for a Master degree. He married his lovely wife, Beverly, and had two children and four grandchildren. While cleaning out his basement, he discovered several inherited boxes containing family pictures and documents. Although not a genealogist, which he says with a great deal of pride, he fortunately decided to share his information with others, both the born and unborn. This book is written to reflect the lives and personalities of real people – not just the genealogical statistics of born on date, married on date, had child one, two, three and died on this date. These were real people who realized and conquered a variety of life challenges in Germany and in their newly adopted home in America. As a nation of immigrants, we should not let their contributions be forgotten...
In recent years, genealogical websites and government agencies have made millions of valuable historical documents digitally available to the public. There is a tremendous amount of information that can be gleaned from these documents to aid scholars interested in social history. This volume brings together researchers presenting historically contextualized family case studies as a lens to enrich the reader’s understanding of the past.