The Mystery of the 1879 GR

By Allen Viehmeyer, Associate Director of Research

This installment on the history of the Genealogical Record of the Schwenkfelder families … focuses on the structure of the 1879 GR edited by Rev. Reuben Kriebel.

Rev. Heebner Created a List of Descendants

Rev. Balthasar Heebner (1770–1848) set out to compile a list of the Schwenkfelder families in his church community. By 1848, his coverless, 153-page manuscript book contained some 496 heads of household. Each bloodline entry begins with the immigrant who arrived in Pennsylvania in the 1730s. There are no ancestors listed for any immigrant, only descendants. These parameters are true for Kriebel’s 1879 book as well.

How Did Heebner Organize His List?

After much study of Heebner’s manuscript, I could find no rationale for the sequential listing of the families; they seemed to occur at random. On the first page, Heebner advised the reader to search the index at the back of the book to find people. This index is unusual in that it is sorted alphabetically by first name.

While Heebner’s manuscript listing was the primary source for Kriebel’s book, the families are not listed in the same order as Heebner’s. Again, it appears that the families are listed randomly. However, careful study revealed that the families are listed chronologically according to their marriage dates; an unusual approach with no explanation. Notably, Kriebel included an alphabetical index of 1170 heads of household by family name, not first name.

Rev. Kreibel Build on Heebner’s Work

In 1879, Reuben Kriebel adopted Balthasar Heebner’s format for organizing the birth, death and marriage dates: the husband’s full name, “son of” (father’s name, page number), “married” wife’s first name, “daughter of” (father’s name, page number) marriage date. (Any further reference to the husband is by his initials.) This is followed by the children’s names in birth order with birth dates (and death dates, if died unmarried). The husband’s and wife’s birth dates are found in their listing as children under their respective father. The couple’s death dates in order of death follow the last child. Although rare, other information follows the parents’ death dates.

The accompanying photo is page 128 in the 1879 GR. The marriage dates are clearly sequential.

The next installments in this GR series will highlight the 1923 edition with its many improvements.

This posting is part of a series of postings about the GR and how to use it. For more background on the Schwenkfelders, see An Immigration Story.