xi. JOHANN CONRAD LORSBACH, b. December 09, 1722, Lampertheim, Germany; m. SUSANNA HERB, November 17, 1748, Falkner Swamp Reformed Church, Montgomery Co. PA.. (Too bad New Born history isn't as proliferate) I found several answers to my postings on the New Born - from 1998, but not the one I was looking for. "Oley Valley Heritage", pages 106-8 supposedly contains info on the New Born, unless it is what is below. From which we deduce that the Bertolet's, Levan's, Keim's, and Schneider's all were New Born. Atleast you know where I got that about everyone in the valley having been New Borns. The ifnormation I want is the name of their leader, adn the name of the town in Germany that, as I remember, they all came from. If not Geisselhardt or nearby, then the Weidner's weren't New Born, either, since the Weidner's came from Geisselhardt. And I still want to know what they were. Yours, Dora The next significant group of settlers was a large group of acquainted or related families from the Palatinate, including some families of Swiss derivation and some families of at least partial French extraction. The first of these people settled in the northern part of the Oley Valley by 1712. It is likely that most or perhaps all of these pioneers were members of the perfectionist 'New Born' sect. Families constituting this large cluster of migrants, or who soon arrived and intermarried with them, appear to have included those of Baumann, Bertolet, Levan, DeTurk, Joder (spelled Yoder today), K�hlwein, Huffnagel, Schenkel, Keim, Schneider, Hoch (anglicized as High), Ballie, Peter, Herbein, Weber (anglicized as Weaver), Kersten (later shortened to Kerst), Aschmann, Ritter, and Kauffmann. The presence of the French families (and exaggeration of the proportion of French ancestry among the people) has led over the years to frequent reference to this group of settlers as the "Oley Huguenots." OK, I will tackle this one. The Neu-gebornen, or Newborn, who settled in the Oley Valley in Berks County early in the 18th century, were one of the most fantastic of all the religious groups. Declaring that they were like Adam before the Fall, they believed themselves to be free of sin and even incapable of sinning, an advantage Adam never possessed. The Newborn left little mark on the religious life of their day; few people were simple-minded enough to take them seriously. Honest--that is what my books says. Hey, this is a great topic. There are a million of these sects in this book on the PA Dutch. Ever hear of the New Mooners? The Millerites? The Society of the Women in the Wilderness? All were small religious sects active in some area of Pa Dutch culture. The book is called The Pennsylvania Dutch by Fredric Klees and is, or was, used as a text book in Lancaster County, PA high schools. It was published by the MacMillan Co. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail � Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/