Dwayne and all, I find this discussion to be fascinating and yet very challenging. I am only offering my penny's worth. Dwayne is right. There has to be a reason for this family connection. My grandfather was a family of 2 brothers marrying 2 sisters. But both families attended the same church! I have 2 brothers also marrying 2 sisters in the post Revolutionary era. They were close neighbors and both ended up in the Lutheran Church. In your example so many of the same family marrying so many others is truly fascinating. Take away religion, neighbors, and that leaves only a few options. There is the possibility that both had known each other previously, either in Europe or in early America. Or as someone else has suggested, there may be a familial relationship heretofore unknown. While religion is taken out of the equation, it may not completely be. So many of our early pioneers sought religion in so many different ways. In North Carolina where I have done most of my research, language dictated many marriages among religous groups. Also here few Anabaptists were able to continue their unique religious practices into the 19th Century. I have noticed some amount of conformity between Anabaptist and Reformed belief systems. What a unique problem. Trying to isolate it without proper documentation is going to be very challenging. I wish you good luck, Robert Carpenter ----- Original Message ----- From: "Janet Rogers" <rogers922@intrstar.net> To: <brethren@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 1:56 PM Subject: [BRE] Explaining the Frantz-Garst Marriages > Tossing in my 2 cents worth here - > > Could it have been the 1st marriage was the catalyst for the others? > Let's say Ann and Mark meet at a Love Fest and then marry. Letters > home, > from Ann, would then no doubt describe the personalities of the others in > the home, causing a desire to meet. > Let's then say that Ann and Mark wish to build a home, and Ann's family > comes to help build, meeting Mark's family. Friendships, attractions and > bonds are made. Other letters are exchanged by Ann to her family with a > line > or two that reads, "Rebecca, Jacob finds your sense of humor attractive, > or > Johann, Mary was very impressed with your strength.." > There next comes another Love Fest, another marriage and down the line. > It is not inconceivable that these matches came about through letters > home and the functions of marriages and funerals as well as the church's > Love Fest. > A bad crop at one end of the county could have led to others in the > church helping that family in other ways or helping them to build a home, > barn, maybe purchase cattle or seed. Just because you are separated by a > great distance then, didn't mean there wasn't communication of some sort. > Was there some sort of cattle auction there that all farmers attended > to > acquire stock? How about the once a month or season trek to a main town to > gather supplies that couldn't be home grown, (coffee, sugar, cloth, oil > for > lanterns, fat or wax for candles). There is always family gossip at these > times. > Then there is always word of mouth. One neighbor dies and his funeral > is > attended. One of the mourners writes a letter home and the information is > passed to others. This could have been the same with letting eligible men > and women know who was available for marriage. > > Blessings > Janet > > > ------------------------ > Search the Archives at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/BRETHREN > ------------------------ > Support Our Sponsoring Agency > The Fellowship Of Brethren Genealogists (FOBG) > For further information contact Ron McAdams mailto:McAdamsr@hotmail.com > ------------------------ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > BRETHREN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Robert, Your response is right on target. I have struggled for about ten years over these five Frantz-Garst marriages involving two families who were neither neighbors nor did they attend the same weekly church meetings. They lived about twenty miles apart, and that was back in the mid-1700s. My intuition tells me that the two families were blood relatives. The father of the Frantz children, Michael Frantz II (b1725) had first cousins who lived on Little Swatara Creek, some twenty miles to the north, where lived the father of the Garst children, John Nicholas Garst (b1727). I suspect that John Nicholas Garst married his Little Swatara neighbor, Elizabeth Frantz (b1729), who was a first cousin of Michael Frantz II of Cocalico, thereby conjoining the Garst family and the Frantz family by marriage and by blood. If I am correct, the five marriages were between second cousins. (Frantz cousin marriages were common in my ancestry. For example, my mother had three different lines going back to her third-great-grandparents, Daniel Frantz of Cocalico and Anna Garst of Little Swatara. I don't know exactly how many ways my mom was her own fourth-cousin.) One more thing: Marriage entries for Johan Nicolaus Gerst and Mary Elizabeth Frantz can be found in IGI family files, films, etc. in Salt Lake City and accessed electronically on FamilySearch. These submissions have not been documented, but they do square with my intuition. Perhaps this is the best I can do. Dwayne Wrightsman ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Carpenter" <rcarpenter2@charter.net> To: <brethren@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 3:41 PM Subject: Re: [BRE] Explaining the Frantz-Garst Marriages > Dwayne and all, > > I find this discussion to be fascinating and yet very challenging. I am > only offering my penny's worth. > > Dwayne is right. There has to be a reason for this family connection. My > grandfather was a family of 2 brothers marrying 2 sisters. But both > families attended the same church! I have 2 brothers also marrying 2 > sisters in the post Revolutionary era. They were close neighbors and both > ended up in the Lutheran Church. > > In your example so many of the same family marrying so many others is > truly > fascinating. Take away religion, neighbors, and that leaves only a few > options. > > There is the possibility that both had known each other previously, either > in Europe or in early America. Or as someone else has suggested, there > may > be a familial relationship heretofore unknown. > > While religion is taken out of the equation, it may not completely be. So > many of our early pioneers sought religion in so many different ways. In > North Carolina where I have done most of my research, language dictated > many > marriages among religous groups. Also here few Anabaptists were able to > continue their unique religious practices into the 19th Century. I have > noticed some amount of conformity between Anabaptist and Reformed belief > systems. > > What a unique problem. Trying to isolate it without proper documentation > is > going to be very challenging. > > I wish you good luck, > > Robert Carpenter