The major part of this work is an alphabetically arranged and cross-indexed list of some 20,000 Maryland families with references to the sources and locations of the records in which they appear. In addition, there is a research record guide arranged by county and type of record, and it identifies all genealogical manuscripts, books, and articles known to exist up to 1940, when this book was first published. Included are church and county courthouse records, deeds, marriages, rent rolls, wills, land records, tombstone inscriptions, censuses, directories, and other data sources.
Johan Martin Dostmann was born in 1730 in Nassig, Germany, and today his descendants can be found throughout the United States of America. One of them is Roy C. Ritter III, and he traces his family’s origins in this detailed history. Dostmann immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1752 with his sister and several friends and cousins, and so began the story of an enduring German-American family. After some time in Frederick County, Maryland, and Washington County, Pennsylvania, the family, which became known as Dustman, took advantage of the settlement opportunities in the newly formed Connecticut Western Reserve of Ohio, joining the state’s earliest pioneers. Johan Martin Dostmann died before that journey, but his surviving children and grandchildren made their mark in Ohio, particularly in Trumbull and Mahoning counties, where they prospered. Covering the first four generations of the Dustman family, this book will be a valuable resource for the descendants of Johan Martin Dostmann.