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You are entering a new realm in researching your German Baptist Brethren ancestry.  This site, as are many others maintained on this domain, presents to researchers and historians high-quality images of historical reference books about the Brethren.  While the companion site, German Baptist Brethren Almanacs, Annuals & Yearbooks, holds many of the periodicals, this site will contain the various district histories, congregational histories, etc., etc., that have been professionally digitized by your host.

Yes, a good-sized portion of the works represented herein can be located online at "archive" web sites, but they are not truly archival in nature.  In truth the majority of them are little better than poor, second generation Xerox copies.  And, the files are often corrupted!  A better term for that digital workflow would be "informational digitization" in that those works are generally lower in quality by magnitudes than what you will discover here.  Furthermore, those images were acquired and highly compressed with the caveat that the images, before being compressed, were not tonally adjusted.  Even worse is that the images were never saved in an archival digital file format.  A picture was taken with the images immediately output to a PDF file for display on the Internet.  No care was taken to ensure that the images would stand the test of time.

In our case the images were scanned in their entirety, in other words not cropped, with the over scan (that portion of the image outside of the page itself) being carefully removed.  After several weeks of acquiring and "cleaning" the images, metadata was applied to the record set.  For those not understanding that term, metadata is information about the image, in this case, the book and bibliographical information.  Metadata can be thought of as the writing often found on the reverse of those old photographs we all have.  In the case of the digital images the metadata was input into each and every image, no matter the size of the work being digitally preserved.

After this step a duplicate set of images was created for tonal and sharpness adjustments.  The series of steps followed for each record set in creating this set of actions was carefully recorded so that the adjustments so made could be recorded into the metadata.  After designing and running a script that accomplishes much of this, in actuality only a portion of the images to be adjusted needing to be sampled, the script was run for this alternate group of images.

At this point the images to be displayed on the Internet needed to be created.  Again, a series of scripts was designed to accomplish this.  This process removing the metadata from the images to be displayed online, the metadata was re-inserted into the online set of images.  The final phase was to create a series of pages to be displayed online.

The result of these processes is now available to you.  In the main most of the content available on this site is available to subscribers only.  There is material available to non-subscribers, but it is limited.

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A. Wayne Webb

A long time historian of the German Baptist Brethren church, and its more modern derivative bodies, Mr. Webb has moved on to become a recognized authority in digitally archiving manuscripts, both published works as well as singular documents.  He served as the Editor of Brethren Roots, 2002 to 2008, as published by The Fellowship of Brethren Genealogists.  To that end he has created and maintains a series of Internet web sites devoted to his passion, German Baptist Brethren history.

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  • The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XI, No. 4 (Apr., 1904), page 375

    The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

    The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XI, No. 4 (Apr., 1904), page 375 [Click for larger image]The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XI, No. 4 (Apr., 1904), page 375

    back again to the inn to meet Bro. Hussey. Together we traveled our way, in a happy frame of mind. We had no house for fourteen miles. Then we came to the "Tschanator" [Shenandoah] River.* The ferryman was very gruff. He did not want to keep us over night. He also asked us at once whether we had any money, before he would take us across the river. We would have liked to stay, because we heard that there was no house for twenty-four miles. On the other side of the river English people gave us shelter after much urging. At first they said they could neither give us a meal nor a bed, we might sleep at the fire. But after a while they changed their minds and gave us something to eat and a good bed. We paid, and left on the following day. On the 22nd, we continued our journey. We had to pass a creek about eight times, because its course is very crooked. The Indian hatchet, which I had with me, was very useful to us; for, wherever it was necessary, we felled a tree across the water and on it went over. We had still some bread in our bundle, which we ate in the woods at noon. As we sat there three men passed us on horseback. They took us, perhaps, at first for wild animals. for they got their rifles ready. But then they continued on their way. After having walked about thirty-five miles to-day, we happened to come to a Gernman house.† I asked for * From Opequon the missionaries turned southeast to the Shenandoah, which they probably crossed at Ashby's Ferry (later Berry's) and the Blue Ridge at Ashby's Gap. From there the road ran southeast, passed Germantown and continued to Fredericksburg. As this road is the only one marked on Jefferson's map, it was most probably the one taken by the missionaries. The creek which they passed so frequently was Goose Creek. † The missionaries were now in the vicinity of Warrenton, Va. As was shown bv the diary of Gottschalk, published in the last issue of this magazine, some of the colonists, who settled at Germantown in 1721, had removed by 1748 ten miles southwest to the "Little Fork of the Rappahannock." From this diary we learn that others had gone north for a few miles. This is corroborated by the fact that John Kemper, one of the original Germanna colonists, acquired his first lands March 4, 1726, from the proprietors of the Northern Neck. His home was on Great Run, about three miles southwest of Warrenton. The missionaries were evidently in that vicinity.

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  • The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XI, No. 3 (Jan., 1904), page 226

    The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

    The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XI, No. 3 (Jan., 1904), page 226 [Click for larger image]The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XI, No. 3 (Jan., 1904), page 226

    sides of the creek German settlers live interspersed among the English. This tract extends from twenty to thirty miles. There is an open door at this place. The people would like some one to stay among them for a while, or even for half a year, in order that old as well as young might hear the truth of the Gospel. In case one desires to visit them and intends to serve all the people, he must be able to speak English and German, if he is alone, and must take at least a month for it. The house of William Degart is too small [for meetings]. Mr. Kasselmann, I believe, would be willing to permit the use of his house. Services would have to be held at two places, one at the upper part of the creek, and one below, because these two places are pretty far apart. There is in this district not only an opportunity to preach among the Germans, but the English, it seems, are even more eager for it than the Germans. II. SOUTH BRANCH.* This is a large and long river, extending over more than 150 miles. It rises in the high Aligener [Allegheny] mountains, on whose other side the Mississippi also has its source. After having united with the North Branch (which also rises in the "Aligener" mountains, but more towards the north, from which fact it derives its name) it is called the Potomik [Potomac]. Most of the German people live along this river, but also many English settlers, because it is an extraordinarily beautiful and fertile country.† This river, the South Branch, has above another fork, called the South Fork. About forty-five miles below the South Fork the country begins to be thickly populated, and thus it continues upwards to the upper part of the South Fork. I preached along the South Branch at two places, below * The South Branch is the chief tributary of the Potomac river, and for years was claimed by Maryland as the true boundary line between that State and Virginia in this section. See report of Hon. Charles James Faulkner, special commissioner, in Kercheval's History of the Valley, second edition. IK50. pp. 142-153. which is valuable because it shows the large number of historical documents relating to the Northern Neck Grant in existence as late as 1832. † The description given by the missionary of the South Branch Valley holds good to this day.

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  • The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, No. 1 (Jul., 1904), page 76

    The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

    The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, No. 1 (Jul., 1904), page 76 [Click for larger image]The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. XII, No. 1 (Jul., 1904), page 76

    On April 13-2, I traveled the other sixty miles to Captain Ogle, where I arrived at night about twelve o'clock. Across the Patomik [Potomiiac] a certain English "Reader," named Thomson, who lives on this side of and close to Cush Creek, invited me to preach Eniglish in their church. I told hinm that I would let him know beforehand when I would do so. [The rest of the diary from Monocacy, Md., to Bethlehem has been omitted.] [COURT ORDERS FROM ORANGE COUNTY NATURALIZING GERMANS. State of Virginia: In Orange County Court, January 28th, 1742. Andrew Garr, John Adam Garr, Lawrence Garr, Lawrence Grays, Duvald Christle, Martin Vallick, John Zimmerman, Peter Fleshman, Zachariah Blankenbacker, John Zimmerman, alias Carpenter, John Thomas, Christopher Uhld, & Frederick Bomgardener, Gernman protestants, having produced a certificate under the hand of George Samuel Klug, Minister of the German congregation in Oranige County, that they within two months last past had received the sacrament of ye Lord's supper, prayed that they might partake of the benefit of an act of parliament made in the thirteenith year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, George the Second, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, defender of ye faith, &c., instituled an act for naturalizing such foreign protestants and others therein mentioned as are settled or shall settle in any of his Maties [sic] colonies in America. Upon their motion, ordered that they take the oaths appointed by act of parliament to be taken instead of the oaths of allegiance & supremacy, & the abjuration oath and subscribe the test, which they all severally did, accordingly, between the hours of nine and twelve in the forenoon; and its thereupon further ordered, that ye Clerk give them a certificate of their having taken the afd. oaths & subscribed the test. A Copy. Teste, P. H. FRY, Clerk. April 21, 1904.

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