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Renbarger Family History
Luckily for me, and other Renbarger researchers,
this family has been extensively researched by all branches. There are two
books out there on this family, one is "Walking With the Renbarger Family" that
was put together by the Renbarger Reunion Committee, and all the family
contributed photos, documents, news articles, family history, and more.
The other book is titled "The Descendants of George Renbarger [1760-1852] of
Grant County, Indiana" by Kimball, Burdick & Burdick. This is mainly a
lineage book of names and dates and short bios of the people if available.
They are both great references and are nice to
have as there is conflicting information in them that will help you find the
right path. Not everyone can be correct, others may have found a different
record that led them on their path.
However, both of these books only go back to
George Renbarger who was born 1 November 1760 in Pennsylvania. One
record I found on the internet, and have never been able to find again, suggests
that George's father was a Henry Renbarger married to a Barbarah
Dessner/Deshner.
George was born of German parentage and left
Pennsylvania between 1785 and 1792. His name was in the tax list for Hardin Co.,
Kentucky for 1800. He moved from Kentucky to Wayne Co., Indiana in August of
1816, locating near Richmond, bringing with him his twin sons, Aaron and
Abraham, and daughter Sarah. They remained there six years and then moved to
Randolph Co., Indiana. In his later years, George lived with his children.
The first child of George was named Henry,
George's father could have been a Henry. This Henry and Barbarah did exist
in York County, Pennsylvania. They are mentioned as heirs in Johann E.
Deshner's will. Johann is Barbarah's father.
In this will, Johann, leaves his wife
Anna
Barbarah Deshner his whole estate, until her death when it should be
separated into four equal parts, except for the large house bible that he left
to his oldest son George Deshner. [Wonder where that bible is now?]
The heirs are his son George, daughter Barbarah intermarried with
Henry Renbarger, daughter Mary intermarried with George
Dice/Diece, and daughter Elizebeth intermarried with Daniel Cayler.
It states also that Barbarah's share should be equally divided among her 8
children. [Wonder who they are? Could George Renbarger be one?]
Barbarah's share was to go to her 8 children when the youngest child reached
his/her majority. Usually 21 was the age, George would have been 24 when this
will was written on 12 July 1785 so if he is one of their children, he wasn't
the youngest, if the age of 21 is the majority age.
George Dice and Daniel Cayler were the executors of Johann's
estate.
This same record that I have not been able to
locate also states Henry's father to be a J. Christian Ramberg.
Was Henry the only Renbarger to come to America?
Is J. Christian Ramberg his father? Was he the only one to come to America?
This line will be hard to trace without knowing what other spellings were used,
and the lack of census information before 1790.
A Henry Rinbirger is living in York Co., Pennsylvania in 1790 where
Johann Deshner's will was probated. There were 2 males above 16, 3 males under
16, and 3 females in the household. A George Dashner is there also with
one male above 16, 1 male under 16, and 3 females.
Other names in the 1790 census were:
John Ramberger Caernarvon, Lancaster, Pennsylvania with 2 males above 16,
3 males under 16, on 3 females.
William Runaberger in York Co., Pennsylvania with 2 males above 16, 1
below 16, and 3 females.
Could these be brothers or cousins to Henry?
I had requested a search at the Kentucky archives
for a Henry Renbarger estate record, thinking he may have moved with his son
George to Kentucky, no record was found. Also had a search done in York County
while searching for the Deshner will, and no record found.
Either he didn't leave a will, the record has been lost, the clerk didn't search
very hard, or Henry was somewhere else other than York County, Pennsylvania, or
the state of Kentucky.
The state of Pennsylvania may hold the key!
I am currently working on
entering the book "Walking With the Renbarger Family" into my database so that
it will be searchable online. However, you will not be able to search for
folks that may still be living, due to privacy issues. There are also
many, many mistakes in this book, due to human error mainly. We all make
mistakes, and I am sure I have made a few in my data entry.
You will notice when surfing
my gedcom for Renbargers that there will be a lot of dates that say "Born abt.
1906" for instance. I put "abt." dates when dates were not provided only
so that I could reference people in the database, as some folks had the same
names in different generations, and I hate leaving fields blank.
Sometimes, a date needed to
be provided to keep spouses in order of their marriage when a marriage date was
not provided.
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