Meeting Notices

The next regular meeting of SSGS will be held Tuesday, May 12, 1998 in the society room of the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic at 7:30 PM.

A Special meeting will be held on Monday, May 25, 1998, in the society room, in the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic at 7:30 PM with speaker will be David States, Halifax, speaking on black Genealogy in Nova Scotia.

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Officers for 1998/99

President:	Sheila Chambers
Vice President:	Al Thornhill
Past President:	Paul Jodrey
Treasurer:	Mary Saul
Newsletter:	Arlene Bailey
Advisory to Newsletter:	Murray Jodrie
Membership:	Arlene Bailey
Program & Education:	Roger Mason
Publicity:	Cherene Naugler
Office Administrator:	Barbara Spindler
Computer Information Manager:	Sueann Bailey

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Surname Research Lines

The Surname Research Lines for 1998 Membership are included in the Newsletter. This year the E-mail Address are also included, where known, which makes a quicker response. Thanks to Sueann Bailey, once again for her tireless efforts in developing the lists.

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Note of Appreciation

A vote of thanks to Murray Jodrie who was Newsletter Editor for the past six years. Also a bouquet to Richard (Dick) Archambault, retiring Membership Chairperson for a job "well done".

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T.B. Smith Collection

Brenton Smith, a native of Queens Co. compiled family histories of Queens Co. families. A number of families were from Lunenburg Co. with details.

The dates of the collection ranges from about 1700 to 1955 contained. There 15 microfilm reels priced at $75.00 a copy.

This would be a valuable collection for our Society but we are unable to purchase them all at one time. Donations to assist in the purchase of the reels would be appreciated.

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Items for Sale at the Society

Cemetery Inscriptions for Lunenburg County on COMPUTER DISK
The South Shore Genealogical Society will soon be releasing Cemetery Inscriptions for Lunenburg County Series Two Volume A & B on computer disk.

Members and friends of the South Shore Genealogical Society have spent many hours gathering the inscriptions from the cemeteries, rechecking, and compiling the information which makes up the original books, the updated books, and now this disc. This information was gathered so that there would be a permanent record of the information on the stones and as a fund raiser for our non profit society. It is our hope that we will be able to offer more disks in the future, however this will depend on the sales generated by this disk and whether or not the. It is our intention to keep a name and address file so when updated information becomes available you can be notified.

For more items for sale view our new section!

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Abandoned Cemeteries in Nova Scotia
    ...."Resting Peacefully but Forgotten"

The discovery of a single gravestone deep in someone's private woodland in Annapolis Co. might be startling to some, but not for Faye Charlebois, Dartmouth, NS. Happy to have traced her family to this particular spot, she was distressed to see the condition of the overgrown grave site of her great, great, great, great grandparents. Their gravestone lay broken, the grave overgrown on the land which had been their 18th - century homestead. Faye and her mother would like to tidy the area and repair the ancestors' 183 year old marker, but what if the landowner said no? Who owns these ancient graves in 1998?

For heritage-minded people, abandoned and forgotten Nova Scotian grave sites and cemeteries mean important information has been lost forever. Overgrown, sometimes with gravestones crumbling, these sites are often the target of vandals. There are even cases of abandoned grave sites being ploughed under during redevelopment by unsuspecting or unscrupulous landowners.

A recent study identified nearly 1,000 burial sites in Cumberland Co. Alone, and many of them unrecorded, on private property or abandoned. With a possible 20,000 burial sites across the province, the question of protecting these sites could be important to our province's heritage.

"In addition to the historical information cemeteries can provide, grave yards are traditionally sacred places," says Trask. "People wanted abandoned and neglected grave sites protected somehow for posterity."

The Nova Scotia Museum would like to find out more about Nova Scotians' interested in the protection of abandoned cemeteries in the province.

If you have knowledge of abandoned cemeteries in your community, please contact:

Deborah Trask
Museum Services
N.S. Museum
1747 Summer Street
Halifax   NS
B3H 3A6
Fax : 1-902-424-0560
educnsm.traskde@gov.ns.ca

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Untangling a Genealogical Mystery
    .. Request from Terry Punch CG

Marie Elisabeth Rothenhauser: Too Many or Too Few?

Johann Philipp Friedrich ROTHENHAUSER (1707-1794) and wife had a child born after they reached Nova Scotia. This child could well be the John George victualled with the family at Halifax between August and October 1752. No record that I have seen accounts for his death or burial, though it is otherwise difficult to explain the child's absence from Lunenburg victualling records through the 1750's. Nonetheless, I believe that John George Rotenhauser did grow to manhood, marry and have issue. Moreover, and despite the boy's absence from the victualling records, four later primary documents prove that a person named John George Rotenhauser, an adult male, lived in the Lunenburg area at least between 1770 and 1795:

1. PANS, RG1, Vol. 443, doc. 2, tells us that in 1770 they lived at Lunenburg, Philip ROTENHAUSER, head of a household including one man, one woman, two other males, one other female; further that all but one of the five had been born in Europe. The one other was born here. Philip is the man; Eliza(beth), his wife, is the woman; the other female is their daughter Anna Barbara; the other males were John Philip George, age 25/26, and John George, age 17/18, I submit.
   
2. On 4 Dec 1788 was baptised at Zion Lutheran Church Johann Michael, burn 29 Nov 1788, son of Johann Georg and Maria Elisabetha Rothenhauser, sponsored by local people. This child was buried from that church on 6 Aug 1791.
   
3. PAN RG 1, Vol. 4441/2, doc. 1, the 1795 Poll Tax, after the death of the immigrant Philip: Philip Rottenhauser, farmer, and George Rottenhauser, labourer.

Since Philip Rotenhauser, Jr., was married only in 1771 and since one had to be at least 21 years of age to be assessed Poll Tax, and since no other Rotenhauser lived here in the eighteenth century, it appears that young John George (born 1752 or 1753) survived, married and lived in Lunenburg into the mid 1790's. We have not his marriage record in the 1780's but since he had a child born in 1788, and a Mary Elizabeth Rotenhauser, burn circa 1784, married in 1802 John George Naugler, it would appear that this somewhat thinly documented younger brother of Philip George Rotenhauser was the father of Mrs. Naugler, and that Mrs. Zwicker was her first cousin, a daughter of Philip George. The 1792 and 1795 Poll Tax lists reveal that one man was known as Philip (Philip George), the other was George (John George). Thus there were two Maria Elisabetha, daughters of those two Rotenhauser brothers.

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Notice of Gathering of the Tipperary Clan

The Young Irelander's Gathering - Late- July 1998, (a group of well educated men, both catholic and Protestant, who were united with a fierce desire to change conditions for the catholic poor, prior to and during the famine).

Should you like information the address is:

45 Main Street
Tipperary Town
Ireland

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Queries:

Wentzell - Researching children of John Edmund Wentzel and Catherine Margareth Beck; Isaiah married Donzella Selig, Abbot, Gadium, Zinethan married Willet Conrad, Ester married Foster Conrad, Florence married Steadman Publicover, Deborah married George Berringer, Josephine married Johnson Zinck.

Jeanette Collings
39 Louisburg Lane
Dartmouth   NS
B2W 3A7
jjcollings@ns.sympatico.ca

Church family - Elizabeth Church who married Ambrose Allen at Chester, NS and Fanny Church who married Joseph Hardy at unknown location. Where were the two Church women born and when and where Fanny was married.
Reply to:

Harold G. Simms
PO Box 204
Norwell MA
USA

Benjamin Robar's parents - Marie Elizabeth Harnish married John Christopher Boutellier Nov 13, 1841. They had four sons. After his death she married John Richardson on Jan 2, 1866. The Boutellier family lived at (I believe) Boutellier Point, at least that is where they married. John Richardson lived at Indian Harbour, Nova Scotia. Benjamin Robar married Lucy Ann Greek with five children. In 1871 and 1881 they were in Lunenburg, Blue Rocks. In 1891, Benjamin was living with his daughter Edna, who married Alexander Walter. Polling District 38, Sub-Division 38, Sub Division Fl, Lunenburg, Pg. 60 - Benjamin was listed as a widower.

Stan Card
7009 Center Creek Dr.
Tampa FL 33615 USA