♂Michael Gingrich Sr.

Michael Gingrich (about 1700 – April 1785) was a yeoman of Lebanon Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, whose will of 27 July 1784 names his wife Magdalena and seven children. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014) through his son Peter Gingerich (1749–1829) and the fifth through his son John Gingerich (1720–1818), by four separate lines of descent in all, two through each son.

Life and family

His parents are not known. No record of his birth or of his coming to Pennsylvania has been found, and none of the region’s Lutheran church registers names him. The family record gives his birth as about 1700 and his death as April 1785 at Lancaster; no register has been found that states either date. A Pennsylvania tax index lists a Michael Gingrich in Lebanon Township, then part of Lancaster County, in 1773.

The will

Michael Gingrich made his will on 27 July 1784, describing himself as “Michael Gingery the Elder of Lebanon Township Lancaster County Yeoman being at present sick”. The name is Gingery in the opening and Kingery at the foot, where he signed with his mark as “Michael Kingery the Elder”; his son Michael is “the younger” in the same will. The probate index gives 18 May 1785 as the day it was proved, so he died between those dates, which agrees with the family record’s April 1785.

The land went to two sons. Michael received the home plantation of 181 acres in Lebanon Township and was to pay 1000 pounds. John received a plantation of 150 acres, also in Lebanon Township, on the Swatara Creek; it is probably the tract that John Gingerich described in his own will of 1818 as 145 acres on the Swatara in Annville Township, since Annville Township was formed out of Lebanon Township. A third son, Peter, already held, by a deed of release, a tract of 220 acres in Hanover Township on the Swatara, which fits Peter Gingerich of East Hanover Township, who farmed on the same creek.

His wife, “Magdaleane”, was living when he signed. She received her bed, bedstead and chest “and also whatsoever I have received with her at the time I was married”. Her maiden name is not known. The wording suggests a late marriage in which she brought property with her, and a will made in 1789 by a widow of her name in Lebanon Township, almost certainly hers, names only Sherick children and grandchildren, so she had been the wife of a Sherick before she married him.

The money from all his lands and personal estate was to be divided equally among his children: John; Barbara, the wife of Christian Jorde; Annly (Anna), the wife of Jacob Jordy; Peter; Maria; Magdalane (Magdalena), the wife of John Allbright; and Michael the younger.

Lines of descent

All four lines reach Ora through her mother, Mary Magdalene Koons (1885–1977): two through his son Peter, six generations up, and two through his son John, seven up. They first join when Peter’s daughter Cattarina Gingerich married John Kunz, a grandson of John Gingerich, at Salem Lutheran church in Lebanon in 1811, so Michael Gingrich’s granddaughter married his great-grandson. Their sons Samuel and Jacob John Kunz each carried both lines, and in 1876 Samuel’s son Thomas Koons married Jacob’s daughter Magdalena M. Koons; Mary Magdalene was their daughter. That Jacob John Kunz is the son Jacob named in John Kunz’s will of 1864 rests on a family letter of 1916 and on the two men living in one county.

Notes

A transcription of the will, made from a collection of Pennsylvania wills and probate records and published in an online family tree, spells the name “Micheal Kingery (Gingery)” and gives 7 July 1784 as the day he signed and 14 May 1785 as the day the will was proved. The will itself reads 27 July, and the probate index gives 18 May.

The family record’s dates for his sons, 1720 for John and 1749 for Peter, put twenty-nine years between them, and John’s birth year is not stated by any record found.

Pennsylvania militia records of the Revolution and of the War of 1812 name a Michael Gingrich, but they belong to younger men of the name: by the family record’s birth year he would have been past seventy-five during the Revolution, and he was dead long before 1812. An index of Revolutionary patriots’ graves lists a Michael Gingrich at the Gingrich Mennonite meeting house in North Cornwall Township, then in Lancaster County and now in Lebanon County; it gives no dates, and it has not been shown to be this man.

An online family tree gives a Michael Gingrich, father of Peter, the dates 1720 to 27 July 1784 at Lebanon Township and a wife surnamed Foulk. The same tree merges several men of the family. The day it gives as his death is the day this will was signed, when he was still living, and no record supports the 1720 birth or the surname Foulk.