How to read a family entry?

By Allen Viehmeyer, Associate Director of Research

Family Numbers

The first line of the family entry is indented ½ inch from the margin. In the case of a progenitor, the family number is not hyphenated, but the family number for all the progenitor’s descendants is hyphenated. For example, the progenitor’s number is 38; his first-born son’s number is [38-1]. The male descendants are numbered sequentially from 1 to infinity.

Mixed Marriages

If a person is the direct descendant of a Schwenkfelder immigrant, his or her name is printed in all upper-case, bolded letters, e.g.: [38-7] JACOB YEAKEL … m … SUSANNA SCHULTZ. The bold upper-case letters indicate that both persons in this marriage are bloodline descendants of Schwenkfelder immigrants. (Yeakel and Schultz have no E-numbers because they were born in Pennsylvania.) The man is listed first.

A mixed marriage comprises one Schwenkfelder and one non-Schwenkfelder. The non-Schwenkfelder’s name is in upper-case, but not bolded, e.g.: [38-35] ANNA YEAKEL … m … MICHAEL HILLIGASS. The Schwenkfelder always comes first in a mixed marriage. When a Schwenkfelder woman marries a non-Schwenkfelder, the woman is listed first.

The photograph accompanying this article shows two marriages between Schwenkfelders and one marriage between a Schwenkfelder and someone outside the group (a mixed marriage). All  these Schwenkfelders were born in Pennsylvania, so there are family numbers but no emigrant numbers. The way each family entry is structured is easy to see. There is even an example of a first marriage in a case of multiple marriages: Barbara Urffer was Samuel Krauss’s first wife.