I too, have a difficult person in my study. I've been working on him for about 6 years now - his descendents considerably longer. He is Jan Hendrick ( Johann Heinrich) Pepler born 1741 in or around Kassel, Hessen, Germany . There is an IGI batch record that is probably him with a birth in 1739 but neither exact date or parents are given. In 1759, he went to South Africa where he prospered, married and is the ancestor of nearly every Pepler in South Africa today. From 1759 onwards, he is very well documented and revered. What we need are his parents. I have DNA results from one of Jan's descendents and they are a very close match to another German lineage. We are now trying to find a link but without his parents....... I've just finished processing about 1000 Pepler/Peppler/Bepler/Beppler and similar records from Hessen with no luck. SO any clue is appreciated at this point Marie (GOONS 5318) Bringing the world together one surname at a time. 'A Pepler Name' http://pepler.tribalpages.com 'Hedgerow - the Ancestors' http://cranberry.tribalpages.com Pepler DNA Study http://www.familytreedna.com/public/pepler-ow/ 'Scroops, Scropes and Scroopes' http://dentonlk.tribalpages.com ________________________________

Marie, My experience of family history in South Africa is mainly from 1819! Googling Germans to South Africa suggests a website giving some names including your Pepler/Bebler but no further info as to source and I would expect you have already contacted such websites on German immigrants to South Africa. Have you managed to trace descendants of all his children, especially any female lines to see if they retain a family bible. Was there a Death Notice when he died to give his parents names, although I've found on those I have obtained for 1850's that such information was left blank, i.e. the person giving the information did not know. Do you know where he was buried just in case there was a useful gravestone? Do you know why he emigrated, could he have been an orphan and been sent there through an organization along with other young men. Was the place given in his records where he was born or where he left from - some people in America take the place of embarkation as being their ancestor's birthplace :>) Alternatively did he come from a well-off trading family sending their children to other parts of the world to expand their business. Would his religion give any clues as to where papers or letters would have been lodged, either in Germany or South Africa. Have you repeatedly tried Universities/Libraries in case they have found references to him amongst other families business/correspondence to suggest a relationship. Good Luck! From Merryl Wells of Luton, Beds. E-Mail: merryl.wells@one-name.org GOONS Mem. No. 1757 Reg. ONS: Bawtree; Gullick/ock, Moist/Moyst. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marie Byatt via" <goons@rootsweb.com> To: <goons@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 8:59 PM Subject: [G] While you're helping John.... >I too, have a difficult person in my study. I've been working on him for >about 6 years now - his descendents considerably longer. > > He is Jan Hendrick ( Johann Heinrich) Pepler born 1741 in or around > Kassel, Hessen, Germany . There is an IGI batch record that is probably > him with a birth in 1739 but neither exact date or parents are given. In > 1759, he went to South Africa where he prospered, married and is the > ancestor of nearly every Pepler in South Africa today. From 1759 onwards, > he is very well documented and revered. > > What we need are his parents. I have DNA results from one of Jan's > descendents and they are a very close match to another German lineage. > We are now trying to find a link but without his parents....... > > I've just finished processing about 1000 Pepler/Peppler/Bepler/Beppler and > similar records from Hessen with no luck. SO any clue is appreciated at > this point > > Marie (GOONS 5318) > > > Bringing the world together one surname at a time. > 'A Pepler Name' http://pepler.tribalpages.com > 'Hedgerow - the Ancestors' http://cranberry.tribalpages.com > Pepler DNA Study http://www.familytreedna.com/public/pepler-ow/ > 'Scroops, Scropes and Scroopes' http://dentonlk.tribalpages.com > > > ________________________________ > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc > http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message

Hi One-Namers Everywhere It would appear that my problems pale into insignificance when compare to Marie's German problems

Marie My great great grandmother was born in Kassel and I did some successful research there about 14 years ago, though concerning a later date than you need (late 18th and 19th centuries). The difficulty is that the Allies dropped incendiary bombs on Kassel on the night of 22/23 October 1943, totally destroying the medieval city centre and killing about 10,000 people. One of the bombs scored a direct hit on the city archive. As a result, the registers of all the city parishes for the period from about 1740 to about 1840 are lost - precise dates vary for different parishes. Earlier church registers were and still are in the Hessische Staatsarchiv in Marburg, and survived. Fortunately, the lost registers can be largely reconstructed from a local newspaper, the "Casselische Policey- und Commercien-Zeitung", which from 1731 onwards published weekly lists of baptisms marriages and deaths, taken from the registers. These are thought to be pretty comprehensive, except for illegitimate births, which tend to be recorded anonymously. These lists have been transcribed in 13 large manuscript volumes, entitled "Einwohner und Familien der Stadt Kassel 1731-1839", edited by Helmut Thiele for the Gesellschaft für Familienkunde in Kurhessen und Waldeck e.V.. Copies are available in various libraries in Kassel, but they do not appear to be available on line. If you can find someone in Kassel to do it for you, it would be a straightforward task to extract any Peplers from these volumes - the entries are arranged by initial letter of surname and then by year, separately for each of baptisms, marriages and deaths. The information is less than the register would have given, but still useful. For baptisms, at least in the late 18th and early 19th century, it records the names of the child and the name and occupation of the father. For marriages it records the names of the parties. For burials, name, age and occupation. The week in which the baptism marriage or burial occurred is recorded but not the precise date. We have lost the additional details, especially for marriages, which would have appeared in the original, but what is left is no worse than we would get in an English parish register. For towns and villages around Kassel, microfilms of the church registers are in the Landeskirchliches Archiv in Kassel - I do not know how many have been indexed or can be found online, for instance on FamilySearch. If you can make sense of old German handwriting, there is a project to put images of German Evangelical Church registers, including some from Hessen, online in the near future - see http://www.kirchenbuchportal.de/blog/ (in German). Sadly it looks as if there will be some sort of fee for access. Chris Pitt Lewis On 08/02/2015 20:59, Marie Byatt via wrote: > I too, have a difficult person in my study. I've been working on him for about 6 years now - > his descendents considerably longer. > > He is Jan Hendrick ( Johann Heinrich) Pepler born 1741 in or around Kassel, Hessen, Germany. > There is an IGI batch record that is probably him with a birth in 1739 but neither exact date > or parents are given. In 1759, he went to South Africa where he prospered, married and is > the ancestor of nearly every Pepler in South Africa today. From 1759 onwards, he is very well > documented and revered. > > What we need are his parents. I have DNA results from one of Jan's descendents and they are > a very close match to another German lineage. We are now trying to find a link but without > his parents....... > > I've just finished processing about 1000 Pepler/Peppler/Bepler/Beppler and similar records > from Hessen with no luck. SO any clue is appreciated at this point > > Marie (GOONS 5318) > > > Bringing the world together one surname at a time. > 'A Pepler Name' http://pepler.tribalpages.com > 'Hedgerow - the Ancestors' http://cranberry.tribalpages.com > Pepler DNA Study http://www.familytreedna.com/public/pepler-ow/ > 'Scroops, Scropes and Scroopes' http://dentonlk.tribalpages.com > > > ________________________________ > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com