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Revised
September
1, 2008
This website
presents
genealogical research on the family of Johann
Friedrich Boyer, who traveled from Europe to America
aboard the ship Nancy
in 1752. The research was
undertaken by the
author in seeking to locate his own Boyer origins, working backward
from his grandfather, Lewis
Elmer Boyer
(1869-1948) of Easton,
Pennsylvania.
Johann
Friedrich Boyer
arrived in Philadelphia and over a few years
journeyed up the Schuylkill River to a largely German-speaking area of
eastern Pennsylvania. He founded a large family in the area
around Orwigsburg, in what in 2006 is Schuylkill County.
About
100 years after his arrival, several of his descendants moved to
Easton, Pennsylvania, and they served as the impetus for this research.
This
website documents
what is known about Johann Friedrich Boyer and
the first several generations of his family. Linked to this
site
is research on the Boyers
of Easton,
the descendants of Johann
Friedrich who moved to Easton, continuing down to the present day.
Within this family, Lewis Elmer Boyer (1869-1948) married
Henrietta Waltman (1874-1948), and genealogists may be interested in
similar research done on the Waltman
family, based
on the immigrant Conrad
Waltman (1715-1796).
The pages of this site are organized
into
several sections:
This section
discusses
the many early mentions of the name Boyer and
the many spellings of the word. It focuses on the people who
emigrated from the Palatinate region of Germany and the attraction of
eastern Pennsylvania for German-speaking immigrants.
THE
ASSOCIATION OF
AMERICAN BOYERS
This section
briefly
describes the work of the Association of American
Boyers, which has been publishing a history, called American
Boyers, of the many lines of immigrants with the name
Boyer or some
variation of Boyer, since 1905.
This
extensive section
develops research on Johann Friedrich Boyer, who
came to America in 1752 aboard the Nancy
and lived in the area of Orwigsburg,
Pennsylvania. "Friedrich" took the Oath of Allegiance in
1778,
which qualified him as a "patriot" in the terminology of the Daughters
of the American Revolution. At least six members of the DAR
based
their applications on Friedrich's patriot status.
This section
lists the
children of Johann Friedrich, apparently
numbering ten. It describes their lives and their own
offspring. Special attention is given to Frederick
Boyer, who seems to have been confused with his father in
official
records; George
Boyer (1769-1847), the ancestor of Lewis
Elmer Boyer,
of Easton; Jakob
Boyer (1771-1852); and Gottfried
Boyer
(1774-1826).
This section focuses on
David Boyer of Orwigsburg, a grandson of Johann
Friedrich Boyer and a son of his son George Boyer
(1769-1847).
David was known as a maker of a long rifle, known as the Pennsylvania
Kentucky Rifle. Included is research into rifle-making. David
had
nine children. Two of them, George
B. Boyer
and William
B.
Boyer,
moved from Orwigsburg to Easton about 1873 and started large
families. George was the father of Lewis
Elmer Boyer
(1869-1948)
of Easton. A related section of this paper provides more
detail
on The
Boyers of
Easton, specifically on George Boyer and Lewis Elmer
Boyer and their descendants.
This section
provides
genealogical charts, in pdf file format, on the
individual components of the Boyer family and other families covered in
this website.
This long
account gives
basic genealogical data on the descendants of
Johann Friedrich Boyer in the direct line down to Lewis Elmer Boyer of
Easton and his descendants. A shorter
version
of the family chronology
is also provided. More detailed information is provided in the textual
accounts in the links above.
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About
the Author
Neil A.
Boyer was born
in Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1938. He grew
up in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, then graduated from Wilson High School
in Easton, Moravian College in Bethlehem, and New York University
School of Law. He was a teacher and lawyer in the first group
of
Peace Corps Volunteers to go to Ethiopia in 1962. Upon his
return, he worked for the Peace Corps in Washington and then spent
nearly 40 years with the Department of State. He organized and led a "reverse
peace
corps" called "Volunteers to America," arranging for teachers
and
social workers from other countries to do voluntary service in
the
United States,
and he represented the United
States at meetings of the World Health Organization, the Pan American
Health Organization, and the Universal Postal Union. He
retired
from government in 2003 and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.
For
more information on Neil Boyer, go here.
Neil Boyer
is the
author
of The
Boyers of Easton, a 319-page book,
published in 1987, with more than 300 photographs, focusing on his
grandfather, Lewis Elmer Boyer (1869-1948), of Easton, Northampton
County, Pennsylvania. That book traced the Boyer family backward from
Lew Boyer to his ancestors, as far as Johann Friedrich Boyer
(1718-1804), who sailed to America from Rotterdam aboard the Nancy in
1752. The book also went forward to Lew Boyer’s
children
and their children. This paper grew out of an effort to bring
the
Boyer book up to date, drawing on new information and the growing
potential of the internet for genealogical research.
Neil
Boyer's Home Page
includes not only the Boyer families of
Orwigsburg and Easton, Pennsylvania, but also a number of families
related by marriage to the Boyers, including Waltman,
Jackson,
Wilkinson, James, Buss, Smith, Lee, Long, Parker, McClurg, Vanderford and Ralston.
See Neil
Boyer's Home Page
for links to these families. Neil is married to Johanna
Misey Boyer, a
descendant
of the Long
family of
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Neil Boyer's lineage in the Boyer family is as follows:
Johann Friedrich Boyer
(1718-1804)
George Boyer
(1769-1847)
David Boyer
(1806-1883)
George B.
Boyer
((1839-1907)
Lewis Elmer
Boyer
(1869-1948)
Lewis Arthur
Boyer
(1909-1985)
Neil Arthur
Boyer
(b.
1938).
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Corrections
to this
material and supplemental information are
welcome.
Please
contact Neil Boyer at 702 Twin Holly Lane,
Silver
Spring, Maryland 20910, or by email at
naboyer@comcast.net.
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