Hermann Bach

DAR Ancestor # A004320 Patriotic Service

I am adding some information that I have found regarding Hermannus/Hermann/Harman Bach, his wife, Anna Margaretha Hausmann, and their children, especially their daughter Anna Ella, born in 1737 and not a twin:

Bottenberg
The 10th of March in the morning about 3 o'clock is delivered by Anna Margaretha, Hermannus Bach's wife, a daughter, and she was baptized the 17th of the same month. Godmother was Anna Ella Hausmann, from there, unmarried. Anna Ella

Source: Westfalen: Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evang. Kirche > Kirchenkreis Siegen > Oberfischbach > Trauungen 1670-1759, Taufen 1725-1737, 1670-1724, Beerdigungen 1670-1759, Konfirmationen 1670-1749 Band 1, Bild
70
www.archion.de (Birth record posted in Media section of Geni profile).
Translation by Elke Hall 8/7/22.

Hermannus Bach married Anna Margaretha Hausmann in Oct 1736 per the record located in Freudenberg, Germany that have been digitized by Archion.de:

The marriage 10/1736:
Bach, Hermannus, Freudenberg, Anna Margaretha Hausmann

Source: Westfalen: Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evang. Kirche > Kirchenkreis Siegen > Freudenberg > Trauungen 1612 - 1874 Band 2, Bild 10
Mikrofilm 1863
www.archion.de

What's interesting to me is that there is no twin brother of Anna Ella, daughter of Hermannus and Anna Margaretha (Hausmann) Bach, but there is a twin sister for Georg Caspar Weidmann, the cousin of Hermannus Bach, and her name is Anna Maria. The birth record for Georg Caspar and Anna Maria Weidmann was found at Archion.de in the church records of Freudenberg dated 16 Dec 1703. Anna Maria Weidmann, the twin sister of Georg Caspar, died in Nov 1705. They are the only twins that are found in the Weidmann/Bach families and I think they have been confused with the children of Hermannus and Anna Margaretha Bach as Hermannus and Anna Margaretha had no twins. The church records have been searched for both Freudenberg and Oberfischbach from 1737 to 1740, I searched the Oberfischbach records because the Hausmann family is from Bottenberg and they attended church in Oberfischbach, that is where Anna Ella Bach was baptised.

Source: Westfalen: Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evang. Kirche > Kirchenkreis Siegen > Freudenberg > Taufen 1696-1725, Konfirmationen 1707-1725 Band 7,
Bild 51
Mikrofilm 1863/1864
www.archion.de

I hope this helps to clear up the confusion regarding the Bach family and, of course, there's always more work to be done!

Barbara Price, Trustee/Genealogist
The Germanna Foundation

http://germannafamily.org/getperson.php?personID=I094629&tree=tree1

• Reference: TNG Genealogy - SmartCopy: Aug 6 2022, 0:57:50 UTC

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Before he immigrated to America, his name was Hermann Bach.

Hermann was the son of Johannes Bach and Anna Margrethe Kray, and he grew up in Freudenberg, Germany.
He married Anna Margrethe Hausmann, on January 3, 1737, in Bottenberg, Germany.
She was born in 1712, in Bottenberg, and her parents were Hermann Hausmann and Agnessa Loos.

Hermann and his wife Anna were the parents of two children— Anna Ella and Hermann, Jr.
These are the only proven and documented children of Hemann Bach.
Anna Ella died sometime between the day she was born, and March of 1738.

On March 10, 1738, Hermann, his wife Anna, and son Hermann Jr. left Freudenberg, along with fifty other people.
According to Bach descendants, a friend, Tillmann Hirnschal, convinced them to sail to Savannah, and to live with a group of Moravian missionaries, who had sailed there with Gen. James Oglethorpe, a few years before.
Members of the Freudenberg Church were very close to the Moravian missionaries.

The fifty-three people from Freudenberg walked to the Rhine River, and then they went down the river to Rotterdam, arriving there in mid-April.
They soon boarded a ship bound for Georgia.
They boarded the ship, "The Union Galley," on April 28, 1738.

Many people mistakenly believe that they boarded another ship, the "Oliver."
But The "Oliver" did not board passengers until June 22, 1738, and it was headed to Pennsylvania but was shipwrecked off of the coast of Virginia, in January of 1739.

According to a researcher named Adelaide Lisetta Fries, an expert on the Moravians, these fifty-three people from Freudenberg sailed to America on the ship "The Union Galley."
You can find her research on the Internet, and a copy of her book is also available to read for free, on the Internet.

The ship, "The Union Galley," landed in Savannah, on September 29, 1738.
The fifty-three people from Freudenberg, including Hermann Bach, and his wife and son, lived with the Moravian missionaries there, for about one year.
However, they were not used to the hot and humid weather, and many people became ill from yellow fever.
So, in the fall of 1739, they decided to leave Savannah and walk north, to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where some of the Moravians had gone, a few months before.
As they walked north, along the coastline, nine of the people from Freudenberg, including Hermann Bach, and his wife and son, decided to stop and settle in the community of Little Fork.

Like most immigrants at that time, Hermann changed the spelling of his name to a more Americanized version. His new name was "Harman Back," and his son's new name was "Harman Back Jr."

It is suspected that Harman's wife Anna died, in Little Fork, shortly after they arrived.
There is no evidence in the Little Fork records that he ever remarried.
There is also no evidence that Harman ever had any additional children.
Joseph Back, who was seen in a few tax lists in Little Fork, was the son of Harman Back Jr., who was the only son of Harman Back.
Joseph was Harman Sr.'s grandson, NOT his son.

Harman bought 100 acres of land in Little Fork, on August 25, 1748, from Jacob Holtsclaw and his wife.
Harman died in Little Fork, sometime before September 15, 1789 and Harman Jr. sold the 100-acre farm. The deed clearly stated that the property was an inheritance.
It is suspected that Harman had died sometime before 1782, when his son Harman Jr. was listed in the 1782 Tax List as owning his father's 100-acre farm, which he had inherited.
Also, the following year, in 1783, his son Harman Jr. suddenly had enough money to buy a Treasury Warrant for some land in Kentucky, in what later became Garrard County.
The deed also clearly indicated that the 100 acres was the same 100 acres that his father had bought from Jacob Holtsclaw, back in 1748.

Harman Jr., his wife, and their children (including their son Joseph) then migrated to Garrard County, Kentucky, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Harman Jr. wrote his will on Dec. 31, 1794, and his two friends, Charles Spilman and William Hogan, witnessed it. Some people mistakenly claim that his will was his father's will, but it wasn't.

Please note that an elderly man, like Harman Jr.'s father, would never have selected witnesses to his will who were over 40 years younger than he was, and even younger than his son.
Plus, Harman Jr.'s father could write, but Harman Jr. could not write.
The will was signed with an "x," because the person could not write.
These facts concerning that will, along with the fact that Harman Jr. had inherited his father's land, sometime before 1789, prove that the will that was written on Dec. 31, 1794, in Garrard County, Kentucky was the will of Harman Back Jr., and not his father.

Harman Back Jr. was listed as "Harman Back Jr." in the Land Tax Lists but he was listed as "Harman Back" in the Personal Property in that 1789 deed because his father was dead by then.

(To make it even more confusing, Harman Back Jr. had a son named Harman Back!)

• With errors: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207697150 was created and is maintained by the same persons who created and maintain https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/195090559/harman-back .

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• Reference: TNG Genealogy - SmartCopy: Aug 6 2022, 13:46:48 UTC
• https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Bach_to_Back?iframe=yresults Group A-Germany to Virginia to Eastern Kentucky B281410 Harman SR>Joseph>Enoch>EnochJR, Garrard Co KY Germany E-FT137267

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