ID: I3016
Name: Mary TANNER
Surname: Tanner
Given Name: Mary
Sex: F
Birth: ABT 1712
Death: in ,Culpeper,Va.
_UID: 6E662F907B41D511BD9EBDC3D7961731C52A
Note:
circumstantial evidence only for this wife, according to John Blankenbaker.
The fourteen hundred and forty-fifth note in a series on the Germanna Colonies The immigrant John Thomas, Sr. (who had married Anna Maria Blankenbaker) had four children which we know because Anna Maria's second husband, Michael Kaefer, left a very complete will which named his stepchildren as well as his own children. The four children were John, Jr., Anna Magdalena, Margaret, and Michael. In the preceding notes, we have talked a lot about the children of Michael where we have mentioned a few of his purported twenty-five. We believe that we know the four children of John, Jr. who were Susanna (m. Jacob Holtzclaw), Mary (m. Joseph Holtzclaw), Mary Barbara (m. Jacob Blankenbaker), and Elizabeth (m. John Railsback). There may have been a fifth child, possibly a son, Michael. We know the families of the two daughters of John, Sr. best of all. It took us a long time to find the husband of Margaret but he was Henry Aylor. Let's go back to the four daughters of John Thomas, Jr. Three of them are known to have married husbands of the Reformed faith, namely two Holtzclaws and John Railsback. The fourth son-in-law of John, Jr. was Jacob Blankenbaker who was a Lutheran. The first child in the family of Jacob and his wife, Mary Barbara Thomas, was born after 1750 so would have been expected to be in the baptismal register of the Lutheran church but they are not. In the second family of Jacob B., the children were baptized as Lutherans. Why aren't Jacob's first children baptized as Lutherans? They were raised in the Lutheran church (the only church game in town). I consider it very likely that the first wife of John Thomas, Jr. was not a Lutheran. Noting that three of her children married Reformed men, perhaps she was Reformed. We know very little about her beyond her given name of Mary. This hypothesis would help explain why the daughters married Reformed men. It might even be extended to Mary Barbara Thomas who married Jacob Blankenbaker. Perhaps her upbringing as a Reformed person would have made it difficult for her to accept a Lutheran baptism for her children. The family of John Thomas, Jr. certainly has Reformed connections. The earliest potential connection would seem to be the marriage of John Holtzclaw to Catherine (Russell) Thomas, a widow. Was this Thomas connected to the Robinson River Thomases? B. C. Holtzclaw, in writing about the Thomas family, spent three pages in Germanna Record 6 agonizing over the structure and identity of the Thomas family. As we see here, the Thomas family, which might be distinct families, is tied to the Holtzclaw family in three ways. Because the Thomas family may be regarded as a branch of the Blankenbaker family, I have spent some time puzzling over this connection. I have mentioned these Thomas-Holtzclaw connections before in these notes hoping to find someone who has studied the situation and can perhaps add some new information. So far I have totally bombed out but hope springs eternal. John Blankenbaker
Change Date: 4 Jun 2010 at 01:00:00
Father: Robert TANNER b: ABT 1695 in Westhofen , , Ger.
Marriage 1 John Wendel THOMAS b: 17 Apr 1712 in Neuenberg,Baden , Ger.
Married: ABT 1729
Children
Has Children Mary Barbara THOMAS b: ABT 1733 in ,Orange,Va.
Has No Children Michael THOMAS b: ABT 1734 in ,Culpeper,Va.
Has No Children Mary THOMAS b: ABT 1737 in ,Orange,Va.
Has Children Elisabeth THOMAS b: 16 Jul 1742 in ,Orange,Va.
Has Children Susannah THOMAS b: 10 Oct 1745 in ,Culpeper,Va.
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