Church Cousins

(updated as of 21 October 2021)

Having identified the fact that about 95% of the members of our church (Bethel Bible Fellowship Church in Emmaus, PA) were connected to each other in a giant web of family connections (see https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-bethel-web.html), I began turning to finding out how many of these individuals were connected to me (or my wife). But where our church is primarily individuals of German extraction, how would they connect to me as I have zero German blood flowing through my veins. But the answer is fairly simple, I can trace my ancestry to hundreds of individuals who came to America in the early 1600s. So, all I had to do is find a connection of one of the German ancestors of someone in church where they married someone of English extraction. This turned out to be more common than I would have expected.

 As an example, one of the people from church had an ancestor who lived not too far north of here, close to Luzerne County, PA. But Luzerne County was initially settled by folks from Connecticut. And a hundred or so years ago, a strapping young lad of a German family fell in love with a lovely English young maiden and married her, thus passing along through their children some of that English blood into what otherwise was a German family.

 Thus far, I have been able to document a cousin connection to nearly 2/3 of the people in our church. I have chosen to list them alphabetically by their current last name, i.e., married name for the women. For each I have listed the degree of connection using the code “8C” for 8^th cousin or 9C2x for 9^th cousin, twice removed. If the relationship is to my wife instead of to me, then I will append a “D”, e.g., 9C2xD. If the relationship is to both of us through a shared ancestor of both myself and my wife, then I will append an “*”, e.g., 12C*.

 

·        Atkins, Phil – 11C1x (plus multiple ways to Donna)

·        Behnke, Alan – 12C*

·        Behnke, Libby – 9C1xD

·        Benjamin, Mark – 10C2x

·        Benjamin, Sue – 9C1x*

·        Bishop, Laura – 9C1x

·        Blackman, Leon – 13C, 11C1xD

·        Boyle, Dianne – 10C/11C* (several ways)

·        Boyle, Gerry – 11C1x, 9C1xD

·        Bray, Bryan – 10CD

·        Breish, Joe – 13C1x

·        Brensinger, Sue – 11C* (Mayflower ancestor)

·       Burkholder, Jared – 10C

·        Capri, Mike – 13C1x

·       Cole, David – 9C2x

·       Collins, Katie – 9C2x (2 ways)

·       Coogan, Carol – 9C1x*

·       Davies, Bob – 8C1x

·        DeLong, Karen – 12C2x

·        DeLong, Lisa – 11C3x

·       Diehl, Kevin – 10C

·       Duncan, Jay – 11C, 9C1xD

·       Ebner, Barb – 11C

·       Edwards, Lorie – 10C1x

·        Engle, Dave – 11C

·       Engle, Jerry – 13C2x, 12CD

·       Engle, Sandy – 10C (2 ways), 13CD

·        Fitting, David – 11C

·        Fox, Wendy – 13C2x, 12CD

·        Frederick, Janet – 11C1x

·       Freeman, Paul, 10C2x, 10CD

·       Gavin, Aaron – 8C1x

·       Gavin, Ruth [Schoonover] – 9C2x (6 ways!)

·        Goff, George – 9C2x*

·       Gray, Mike – 13C

·       Gross, Shannon – 11C1x

·        Harley, Alvin and Kenny – 11C1x

·       Harrison, Ed – 10C1x

·       Heater, Linda – 11C*

·        Heckman, Gail – 10C

·       Hilbert, Nancy – 9C3x

·        Hodge, Phil – 13C2xD

·        Hoffner, Chris – 10C2xD

·        Hottenstein, Jane – 11C1x*

·       Howells, Rick – 11C1x

·        Huebner, John – 10C1x*

·        Jarratt, Nick – 10C2x

·        Karch, Gary – 12C1x

·       Kauffman, Becky [Fritz] – 10C1x

·       Kauffman, Rich – 11C, 11CD

·       Kauffman, Wanda – 10CD

·       Keiser, Marvin – 14C1x

·       Kohler, Gretchen – 11C

·       Kuhns, Annette – 13C

·        Kuhns, Liz – 9C2x

·        Labrie, Lou – 9C1x

·        LaFerney, Torey – 11C4x, 12C2xD

·        Lavalva, Susan – 9C2x

·        Lavoie, Shelley – 12C2xD

·       Lowmaster, Jeff – 10C1x, 10C2xD (3 ways)

·        Marks, Diane – 10C1x

·       Martrich, Bob – 9C1x (plus 4 other ways)

·        Mazza, Janet – 10C1x

·        Mehl, Linda – 12C

·       Merrick, Stephen – 10C1x

·       Mertus, Nancy – 10C, 9CD

·       Metz, Margaret – 9C1x*

·       Morrison, Phil – 10C1x

·       Nonnemacher, Holly [Newell] – 10C1x

·       Parker, Brian – 10C1x*

·       Paulsen, Joy, 8C/9C/10C (24+ ways!), 9CD

·       Perrin, Judy – 7C3x

·       Plarr, Barry – 12C

·       Plate, Mimi – 9C2x, 11C1x

·       Pritts, Jane – 12C1xD

·       Reichard, Linda – 8C/9C/10C (at least 8 ways)

·       Renzi, Anne – 10C2x

·       Reynolds, Jon – 9C1x

·       Rigdon, Laura – 9C3x (several ways)

·        Roth, Betty – 12C3xD

·        Roth, Lynn – 10C2xD

·       Roth, Maggie [Campbell] – 11C1xD

·        Roth, Sharon – 12C1x

·        Schenkel, Patti – 10C2x*

·        Schlonecker, Dave – 12C2x

·        Schoen, Dave – 10C2x, 11CD

·       Schultz, Barb, 8C1x

·       Scott, Steve – 13C*

·        Seibert, Linda – 11C2x

·        Sell, Dolores – 10C*

·        Shoemaker, Marlene – 10C*

·        Smith, David – 10C3x

·        Smith, Faith – 9C

·        Smith, Heidi – 9C1x

·        Smith, Leonard and Lyle – 10C1x*

·       Smith, Paul – 11C3x

·        Sorrick, Fred – 10C

·       Sorrick, Wilma – 8C1x

·        Stout, Cathy – 11C

·        Sulzer, Barb – 9C2x*

·       Tarver, Johnawane – 9C1x

·        Weiss, Jim – 8C2x

·        Weller, Dana – 9C1xD

·       Wengryn, Kathy – 12C*

·       Wilson, Scott – 9C1x

·       Williams, Sue – 10C

·       Wimble, Cathy – 9C1x

·        Wood, Krystle – 11C*

·       Zacharda, Richard – 12C