I am not throwing Albrecht, Alexander Spotswood or de Graffenried into the trash.  I don't think John is either-but he can answer for himself.  Albrecht may be the only one who could have claimed to be a miner.  I doubt Spotswood ever did any mining work on his own.  No doubt he was looking for silver-but with others supplying the labor.  My understanding of John's statements was that the First Colony people themselves were not miners based on the known information about their livelihoods before their arrival in the Virginia Colony.  Speaking specifically of the Holtzclaw/Holzklau family:  Hans Jacob Holtzklau was a school teacher as were his grandfather, father and brother Johannes.  Going back into the records at the Munster archives, it seems the Holzklaus were farmers and/or overseers on land owned by a Catholic convent near Oberholzklau, plus a few who were beer sellers and bakers.  The direct line ancestors seemed to be in other jobs than smelting iron ore. Has anyone researched the amount of iron ore produced in the Siegen area by year?  It might be interesting to discover when the ironworks were most active. Suzanne Colliins Matson   ________________________________ From: Craig Kilby <persisto@earthlink.net> To: germanna_colonies@rootsweb.com Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2008 12:45:59 PM Subject: [GERMANNA] First Colony Not Miners? Whoah!  Back up the bus! I seem to recall John Blankenbaker, some years ago on this same list,  in one of his thousand + notes, gave a lot of thought and research  into this very topic, particularly about Joseph Albrecht, Gov.  Spottswood and the imposter "Baron" de Graffenried,  (the founder of  New Bern, NC)....are we now throwing all of this into the trash? Craig Kilby On Nov 9, 2008, at 3:00 AM, germanna_colonies-request@rootsweb.com  wrote: > Subject: Re: [GERMANNA] Miners in the First Colony? (Part II) > To: germanna_colonies@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: <510931.52431.qm@web59503.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > Are the sources Willis Kemper used known? > > Rev. J. Silor Garrison gave the same information in his book  > History of the Reformed Church in Virginia, 1714-1940 which was  > published in 1948.? Rev. Garrison did not give his sources. > > Since no one has responded, perhaps there is no proof that they  > were miners. > > Suzanne Collins Matson > > > > > ________________________________ > From: "john.blankenbaker@comcast.net" john.blankenbaker@comcast.net > Sent: Wednesday, November 5, 2008 6:48:05 AM > Subject: Re: [GERMANNA] Miners in the First Colony? (Part II) > > Suzanne, > Willis Kemper really started the ball rolling with the idea > that the First Colony consisted of miners. > > -- > John.Blankenbaker@comcast.net > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > To contact the GERMANNA_COLONIES list administrator, send an email to > GERMANNA_COLONIES-admin@rootsweb.com. > > To post a message to the GERMANNA_COLONIES mailing list, send an  > email to GERMANNA_COLONIES@rootsweb.com. > > __________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to  > GERMANNA_COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com > with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and  > the body of the > email with no additional text. > > > End of GERMANNA_COLONIES Digest, Vol 3, Issue 313 > ************************************************* ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GERMANNA_COLONIES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message