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    1. [BRE] Peter Eichenberg and the Graffs
    2. Dwayne Wrightsman
    3. I have been told by Debby Bliss that several of you are interested in the family of the wife of Peter Eichenberg. Debby told me that Peter was married to a Fronica Groff and asked me if I knew which Graff/Groff family that would be. Well, I think I have stumbled onto that family in my search for the family of my own Jacob Graff/Grove of NC. I discovered that my Jacob Grove of NC was most likely the son of Jacob Graff of East Cocalico, Lancaster County, and member of the Ephrata Society located in Cocalico Township before Ephrata became its own township. Jacob Graff/Groff died May 6, 1776, according to both the Ephrata Death Register and according to Lancaster County Probate Court. I found an abstract of his probated will on the Internet and it says that Peter "Echenberger" was an executor of the will of Jacob Graff/Groff. Often when a son is not named as executor the job falls on a son-in-law, which would be the case if Fronica Groff was a daughter of the deceased. Unfortunately, the abstract says that the children of the deceased were not named in the will itself. I have sent away for a copy of the will and related estate papers to see what I can find because my own Jacob Grove of NC would have been one of the children as well. Land and tax records of Cocalico Township indicate that a Peter Eichenberg was a close neighbor to the deceased and was the right age to have married a daughter of the deceased, so I think it is a match. If it's not, it sure is a strange coincidence. Incidentally, quite a few of Fronica Graff's parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters were members of the Ephrata Society with death dates and relationships given in the Ephrata Register, assuming that Fronica was the daughter of Jacob Graff (died May 6,1776). Dwayne Wrightsman

    04/16/2008 08:41:58