Linda -- As is often the case, your request brought up more questions on my part than answers. I am interested in your Rinehart relationship in the German migration. Migration in my case came about 30 years earlier (for the Rineharts), that is, moved from Frederick to Hagerstown, then on to northern WV (VA at the time). However, about 1800, a large contingent of people from the Frederick area moved directly to eastern OH. They were joined by my Rineharts who at the time were in Randolph County, VA (WV). In that case, there did not seem to be any specific reason for the move west other than a desire to find more open land. Perhaps Frederick area was becoming too crowded. This group all ended up in Jefferson County, OH. Records for this area at that time are somewhat scarce, but we have been able to trace them through various county records. Re you PA problem, I am sure someone else can help you more, but I had to visit the courthouses and historical groups in Jefferson and Carroll Counties to come up with the information as to where they were. Could not find anything without visiting, but it worked. My single question, just who were these Rineharts? We have a connection problem in the 1740 to 1770 period. Did they come in 1752 with your ancestors, or earlier? Do you have any given names for this family? Paul -----Original Message----- From: pawestmo-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:pawestmo-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Linda Nead Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 6:06 PM To: pawestmo@rootsweb.com Subject: [PAWESTMO] Brick Wall - Niedt/Need/Nead Family We need help with a brick wall on my husband's side of the family. Two brothers, Christopher and Mathias Niedt from Germany, entered the colonies via Philadelphia in 1752 and moved to the Frederick / Washington County area of Maryland. They came on different ships about a month apart. Christopher Need, age about 70, shows up in the 1790 Federal Census in the Hagerstown, Maryland area. Mathias is also known to have moved to the same area and operated a leather tannery. Christopher had three sons, Johan Christof b.1734 Germany, George b.1740 Germany and Jacob. I'm not sure if they were Lutheran or German Baptist. They seemed to migrate with a number of other families; Nommaker, Tomer, Wagoner, Brown, Roher, Rinehart, Ott, Ramsey, Waite. This migration pattern was likely due to their German heritage, they may have even came from the same part of Germany since many arrived on the two ships together. The group splintered into several smaller groups, with the smaller groups going off to Ohio, Tennessee and later traveling deeper into the west. But the main group seemed to stay in Maryland, until suddenly the whole group decided to migrate from the Hagerstown Maryland area to Bedford and finally Huntingdon County Pennsylvania around 1800. Was there anything that happened about that time which would have caused this wholesale migration? Since the counties of Huntingdon and Bedford split about this time we have had trouble finding out where the group settled prior to coming to rest around Three Springs, PA. We have looked in census records in Maryland and both Bedford and Huntingdon Counties in Pennsylvania to no avail. Do you have any suggestions on what records would be available that could help us discover where might have been between 1800 and 1840? We're thinking that they were somewhere in western PA. Thanks for any suggestions, Linda Nead ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PAWESTMO-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message