Ok, so it's been established that there is no factual basis in stating that Abraham's wife's maiden name was Martin. I think it does us all a disservice to keep stating that she was a Martin unless there is PROOF. All this does is perpetuate a rumor when we should actually be encouraging researchers to find hard evidence -- one way or the other. Um, Gerry, the Geigers were in the midst of people who spoke their own language in Saxe-Gotha so that theory is sort of hard to go with. In fact, if you read the history of Glynn Co., GA where a James and John Martin received land during the 1760s, they actually prided themselves on the fact that they were a melting pot of every nationality including Sephardic Jews. Having said that, I know first hand of the intolerance of my own Geiger family members: I lived for a couple of years with my aunt and uncle who were Methodist ministers. They absolutely forbade me to attend Baptist Bible study with friends. So anything could be possible. As for the contention that these early emigrants were a stationary: there was a war going on and many people -- especially men -- were moving around considerably. As a perfect example, I site our Abraham Geiger's warrant claim which he signed for while he was in Charleston in 1787. Mary/March would have been 16 then -- certainly of marriagable age. What's to say he didn't meet her on his travels? There were no Martins in Effingham (aside from the John Nicholas). It wasn't until after the war that Abraham, as an adult, shows up in Bryan Co. Something else: there were land grants to GA men with what was called a "refugee" status. These people were not soldiers -- they were families who were living in GA during the war and relocated to other areas when the British confiscated their farms. When the Americans came into power, the Georgians moved back. And these people had to travel quite a bit within their areas -- hence their demand for new counties. They sited the problems of traveling so far to attend monthly meeting in the courts. Even so, we might consider it a strain to walk a few blocks, but the emigrants hadn't been spoiled by autos. If you study the history of the area, you'll see that people traveled by boat through the waterways quite a bit. It was only a short boat ride down the Savannah River from Ebenezer to Savannah. Not only that, but in the case of John Nicholas Martin (NO relation to us), the church clearly documents his routine travels as a preacher between NC, SC and GA. And what about that David Martin who came to SC from PN as a Dunker preacher? There is a book out called The Restless People describing the mass migrations that took place right after the Rev War. People were very much on the move becasue the Loyalists were having their land confiscated and needed to find more; the Patriots were being granted new land in payment for their services. It was even fashionable for large plantaion owners in VA to have secondary plantaions in GA. I don't mean to go on and on, I just think that we should keep an open mind and not stop researching until we find hard PROOF of our ancestors -- from wherever they may have come. Beverly -----Original Message----- From: Gerald Gieger <giegerg@hotmail.com> To: GEIGER-L@rootsweb.com <GEIGER-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Saturday, January 16, 1999 10:37 AM Subject: Re: [GEIGER-L] Martins/Geigers >Knowing what I do about ethnic groups, I find it hard to envision that >Irish or French MARTINs would be living together in the middle of a >Germanic settlement. It wasn't like today. People of the same ethnic >background tended to clump together in settlements. They certainly >didn't marry off their children to other nationalities. I mean no >offense in this, and don't want to incite a flame, but that is the way >it was. Also, we must not lose sight of the fact that vast territory lay >between settlements, and NC is a long way from GA separated by >mountains, especially walking in Winter. It would have been necessary >for these Irishmen or Frenchmen to be fluent in Deutsch. > >I think that is the reason that the emigrant Abraham and his family left >Saxe-Gotha and migrated to GA. Blame it on fleeing the stigma of the >Weberite heresy if you want, but I think that the desire to be around >folks who spoke their native tongue and were familiar with the >conditions in Europe from which they had escaped, to be stronger than >any other force. In other words they wanted to be among "their own kind >of people." Many folks don't understand that the British Colonists >resented these European Nationals entering "their New World and taking >all the choice land" but the Crown wanted to expand its influence by >adding subjects, and this was an easy way to get them. Didn't realize >they were going to rebel. > > >>From: "Beverly&Brynne" <bbb@pdq.net> >>Subject: Re: [GEIGER-L] Martins/Geigers >>Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 06:53:29 -0600 >>To: GEIGER-L@rootsweb.com >>Reply-To: GEIGER-L@rootsweb.com >> >>And don't forget the John and James Martin who received land together >just >>up the river in Burke Co. in 1767 -- they were from Ireland. > > >______________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > > >==== GEIGER Mailing List ==== >To subscribe or unsubscribe send your message to: GEIGER-L-request@rootsweb.com or GEIGER-D-request@rootsweb.com (L for mail mode and D for digest) >See our Webpage for details: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~geiger/ > >