Hi John & list. Great to hear from you. RE: DRION IN OHIO FROM HATTEN AS DEFINITE KIN TO TREON/DRION from ship JANET??? Sadly, "no" proof yet! --but it is still a possibility. I'm not entirely jumping ship on that possibility at this point. I'm just super confused! Several issues puzzle us including the discrepancy on the gravestone dates vs. birht info/ and who was CHRISTIAN??>> 1)Christian came on a ship, and he was a Drion or otherwise, depending on whose translation of the ship's list you read. 2) Christian was mentioned in the lore of the Montgomery County, Ohio, Treons as being in their ancestry; mentioned by SEVERAL of them, not just one. His exact relationship varies, depending on who was doing the mentioning. We must believe he existed, either as Johann Michael's father, or perhaps further back. 3) Merritt Wolfe chose to call him Johann Michael's father, but found no further trace of him. Here is the big dilemma: We just are trying to figure WHO this man of family lore passed down named CHRISTIAN TREON/TRION/DRION really was and why isn't he listed with your Hatten family who we thought was ours??>> He isn't listed in that Hatten family because that Hatten family probably isn't ours. The birth date of that Johann Michael DRION (11 Nov 1725) is at GREAT disparity with the accepted birthdate of "our" Johann Michael (17 July 1731: calculated from the VERY legible age at death on his gravestone). That's a disparity of over 5-1/2 years !! That Johann Michael's father was, yes, a barber/surgeon in Hatten. There was NO connection to the French Army. He was the village barber/surgeon. His name was Johann Georg Drion, and his father was Balthasar Drion, a court painter. The only other DRION of interest in this family is Johann Georg's brother, also living in Hatten, Johann Heinrich, artist and church elder. In NEITHER of those families is there a Christian Drion. Actually, in the entire time span of the Hatten records, there are precious few baptised with the name Christian at all !! It was not a popular name in that area. So much confusion with the spelling variations,etc. Was there really a CHRISTIAN? Were there more children not accounted for?? etc... Are there REAL researchable FRENCH army rosters which would list a surgeon? DAVE, do you know where we can check this out?>> These are cogent, legitimate questions. Bonnie, my best suggestion on the FRENCH Army Rosters would be to go to Rootsweb.com, find a mailing list there in France and ask the question there. I don't know, simply because I've never taken the time to look (I'm ashamed to admit that, but it's true !!) It may well be that some experienced researcher on one of those services might be of GREAT help. RE: "Christian" as a title or description/nickname based upon religion and not necessarily the man's given baptismal name???>> I doubt that. Ship manifests used given names. **Just a thought: (NOTE: OFTEN in the 1700's/1800's some folks were classified by their religion! )One of my ancestors was Catholic and he is not listed on the VA census by his given Christian name, but as "PAPIST MCVOY" - ** I know for a fact that "PAPIST" was NOT this man's name but a reference that he was a member of the ROMAN CATHOLIC Church!!!("Papist" referring to the Pope who is the head of the Roman Catholic religion on earth. Papal is an adjective which refers to the Pope and a "papist" is a follower of this religious doctrine.)Wonder if our "Christian" was referred to in the same manner? Perhaps our ancestor was nick-named for his pursuit of his Christian religious freedom!!! (Just a thought.) The "Papist" thing in a Virginia census about my own ancestor is hanging in the back of my mind. Perhaps the Christian part of his name was but a religious title?? Now, Dave said that TRYON are separate, but one of the DR.FREDERICK'S graves in PA is spelled as TRYON and there are TRION and TRINE that I personally believe "may" connect to TREON in PA. One of the kind folks from the TRYON list sent me info from the book about TRYON and SOME OF the TRYON appears to be derived somehow from a PETER TREION, and I think it may have said he was French. I read this over a year ago,so it is not real fresh in my memory, but our families could really connect at some early pre-America point in time. (Worth investigating.) ANYWAY, TREION is definitely interesting!>> Yes, Bill Treon and I visited that very TRYON grave, and I photoed him sitting on the good-sized grave marker !! Don't get me wrong about variant spellings: I'm not saying that a Tryon is not a Treon. I'm saying we must look at each variant as a separate family (which that TRYON of ours was), and that they probably derived from the Drion (as ours did: Drion>Trion.Treon>Tryon). Also TRAHAN and DRUION are families found in early Louisiana as well as HACHE' which apparently some decendents spell as ACHE which is remarkably similar to ACHEY and Hermanus Achey was spelled as ACHE. These folks were also French. There is so much wonderful history here-- whether or not they are kin to us remains to be proven or disproven. **But another bit of food for thought!>> And perhaps ALL related somewhere back along the line. I've just been doing an amazing amount of work on my HOLZHAUSEN line. It's eventually tied into TREON, but I won't confuse the issue here !! :-)) My point is that my GGgrandmother Louisa Holzhausen spelled her name that way. Her father, Rev. Philippe Friedrich HOLZHAUSEN spelled his name that way when he wrote it into the Koerdorf, Germany, church records. HIS father, the Rev. Engelhard Holzhausen, always spelled it HOLTZHAUSEN (with the "t"). They're all the same family, the same line, and we can't let the variant spellings throw us for a loop. I'm confident that someone of us will find the proper DRION family one of these days. They just aren't from Hatten !! Another good book is FLOYD'S NORTHUMBERLAND GENEALOGY about Northumberland Co PA and was on-line. (Is it still?) TREON line of Dr.Frederick is mentioned. My husband's line is direct from him and several are STILL living in Sunbury and surrounding areas of Northumberland Co. Most interesting! (Was on USGENWEB'S Northumb.Co site a while ago.)>> Yes there are LOTS of Treons still running around the woods up there !! Bill, bless his memory, was one of them. ALSO, have found several Pennsylavania books with old Baptism rec's at the Rowan Co NC library for DRIAN and DRIANN etc that look suspiciously like our TREON of today. I think folks spelled the name as they darn well pleased and now the descendents have to piece the puzzle together. Conclusion: ** PATIENCE & perserverence are necessary to find our true answers. No one's research is wrong or to be criticized, we must all KEEP AN OPEN mind upon receipt of PROOF either way. We are all still digging, so hang in there! It will take time and diligence and cooperation. Dave is definitely correct to keep digging. He may find all the previous research to be in error! We just don't have enough info to prove or disprove any one single theory yet. (*also if anyone knows how to get into a netscape website, please let me know. Netscape has changed EVERYTHING and I wanted to get into the site and change it with notations, but can't even access it or delete it.) I don't know the true answer about the obvious disparity between dates on J.Michael's records and gravestone. >> SEE ABOVE However, I DO KNOW THAT MY VERY OWN GREAT GRANDPA was born 1841 PENSACOLA FL (per church and Bible rec's) yet HIS GRAVESTONE CLEARLY SAYS HE WAS BORN 1845!!! THIS IS A 3 YEAR MISTAKE!>> and, Bonnie, I've a grt.-grandmother with a 1-year error in hers !! My theory: Often folks didn't have clear records of their own birth dates. My own grandma and grandpa in MD had discrepancies between their birth date on file and the ones their families celebrated their entire lives! Believe it or not-- ****This DOES HAPPEN! More often than we know!!!> Yes, but it still doesn't make Johann Michael the one born in Hatten !! Ours was an educated man, therefore not likely to make a 5-1/2 year mistake !! :-))))) Think about it: MIDWIVES who were often pretty darn illiterate would fill out the birth certificates. My own mom was MARY TERESA ISTVAN all her life and she was born in 1923 in Charles Co MD. Mom got a copy of her own birth certificate which had been filled out by a midwife. She was horrified to find out she had been "officially" listed as TERRISHIA MARY ISTRAVAN (NO KIDDING!) and had to LEGALLY get it fixed! I know of several other cousins of my parents that this happened to in Maryland in the 20th century no less! Same thing happened to my own grandma with her name and her birth date was over 13 months different on her birth certificate than on her family record!! My opinion is that we need to re-look at the gravestone issue WITH AN OPEN MIND/ without quickly dismissing him by believing that it was "doubtful there could be such a mistake." Actually it happened often back then. ***At least in Maryland! Happy Easter to all of you and your families. Bonnie >> And, Bonnie, the same to you and all of yours. We'll celebrate Easter in one of Carol's ancestral churches along the Mosel River and with her wine-making cousins there !! Hoooooooo Boy ! Dave Ross