Many years ago, I made a discovery of an event that occurred involving my 6x great-grandfather, Johannes Mueller (1733-1796). Later, I was able to trace the same event back through my maternal great-grandmother, Edna Mae (Keim) Earp (1889-1959). She is my gateway ancestor to the discovery I made.

Unfortunately, as I was in the midst of writing this post, I discovered a major flaw in a trusted family tree that I’ve used as a reference for the event I was going to write about.  The error in fact is something I should have noticed when I first began looking at this family tree.  I’ve revisited the tree a number of times and just neglected to see the obvious mistake that was made and in turn, flipped this post on its ear.

Never the less, I am not one to back down from a challenge, so I dug in hard to see what I could discover from this mistake.

 I would like to show the trail of records and evidence that I found that goes back to the mentioned event and where the mistake was made. At the end of this post, you will see how surprising this really is and how important it is to fully research your ancestors. 

I would like to begin with Edna’s father, John Keller Keim (1854-1916).  John Keim was married twice.  He first married Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie) Hummer in about 1882.  Mary died in 1911 and John remarried in 1913 to Ella Ballinger.  John passed away in 1916. 

We’ll start with John Keim’s death certificate: 

Courtesy of Ancestry© 

The important finds here are John’s DOB and DOD, father and mother’s names, what John died from and where he was buried.  If you notice the mother’s name listed as Mary E. Homer (Hummer), I believe this is an error and may be so due to the information given by the informant, Aaron J. Keim, Jr.  John’s parents were Aaron Keim and Mary Lippert (there are multiple spellings of the Lippert name). Aaron Jr. apparently misunderstood and named Mary E. Homer (Hummer) for the mother’s maiden name, which was John’s 1^st wife, whom he married in 1882. You should also take notice that the middle initial is stated as E.

 To show there is a discrepancy, here is a portion of the record for John’s 2^nd marriage to Ella Ballinger. John’s mother’s maiden name is shown as Leopard. Note that John is shown as the applicant:

Courtesy of Ancestry© 

Also, here is the 1870 Census for Wheatfield, Perry Co., PA for the Aaron Keim family:

Courtesy of Ancestry©

You see that John’s mother has the name of Mary Ann and the name stated in the death certificate above was Mary E Keim. Also, as a bonus Mary Ann’s mother, Hannah Leppard (Lippert) is living with them. 

Hannah (Schambaugh) Lippert (1793-1876), Mary Ann’s mother and John’s grandmother, was the daughter of Johan Philip Schambaugh (1762-1844) and Hannah R. Albert (1765-1855). 

The next piece of evidence I found for Hannah and her parents is considered a secondary record from the “Biographical Annals of Cumberland County…” by the Genealogical Publishing Co. (Chicago) in 1905.

As mentioned, the ancestor of Philip Schambaugh was George Schambaugh (1718-1794). George was actually Philip’s father, and Philip named one of his sons George.

Now, the mistake mentioned at the beginning of this post is this…some claim and is also shown in the trusted family tree that I used as a reference, that Philp Shambaugh was the son of George Shambaugh (1715-1794) and Elizabeth Boehm (1721-1756), the daughter of Rev. John Philip Boehm (1683-1749). The claim that Philip Shambaugh is the son of the above-mentioned George and Elizabeth is not possible since Philip Shambaugh was born in 1762, six years after Elizabeth Boehm passed away. However, there was another George Shambaugh (1720-1791), who was married to Maria Margaretha Ludwig (bef. 1731-????).

From this point, I really don’t have any further records at present that show proof of the father-son relationship between Philip and the George Shambaugh that married Margaretha Ludwig, but what I have discovered certainly knocks down the claim of descendancy that my Philip Shambaugh has from the Boehm family. There is a website dedicated to Shambaugh families that came to America.  Here are the links to the two pages that show the two different George Shambaugh families: 

George Shambaugh & Elizabeth Boehm

George Shambaugh & Maria Margaretha Ludwig

It is still interesting to note that my 6x great-grandfather, Johannes Mueller, who was born on 9 Nov. 1733, was baptized on 16 Nov. 1733 by the Rev. John Philip Boehm. 

Source: Taken from Notes and Queries Historical, Biographical and Genealogical Relating to the Interior Pennsylvania by William Henry Egle, Annual Vol. 1899. 

Again, even though I’ve been doing this sort of research for a while, I too can be fallible if I don’t complete my research thoroughly. I never really took the time to go back and fully study and research the claims to the Boehm family. Now that I have, I can put my mind at ease knowing that I’ve corrected something that is very important. I strive for accuracy and vital proof for family lineages. 

Remember, what is at the heart of genealogical study and research is uncovering the truth about our ancestors. I just don’t want to “hitch my wagon” to some family just because they were famous, or well-known in history and someone else has it shown in their family tree or in their research as being so. As they say, the proof is in the pudding! 

Featured Image: John K. Keim Family (Note: Edna Mae (Keim) Earp is at the far upper right of the image)

Sources: 

Ancestry© 

“Biographical Annals of Cumberland County…” by the Genealogical Publishing Co. (Chicago) in 1905 

“Notes and Queries Historical, Biographical and Genealogical Relating to the Interior Pennsylvania” by William Henry Egle, Annual Vol. 1899 

Shambaugh.org

Acknowledgements: 

To my wife Cheryl, who is always by my side, is my cheerleader and I couldn’t live without her!