Is Conrad Wiettemeyer the same as Conrad Widmayer

Question

I located the name of Conrad Wiettemeyer in Israel Daniel Rupp's list of " A Collection of Upwards of Thirty Thousand Names of German Swiss Dutch French and Other Immigrants in Pennsylvania From 1727 to 1776" on page 310 which states he was a passenger on the ship Peggy dated 24 September 1753. I am trying to establish whether this Conrad Wiettemeyer is the same as Conrad Widmayer (b. abt 1740 d. 1802). As I am fairly new to genealogy, I am unsure of where to look or what resources to use to establish or disprove a link between the two. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

K., it is certainly possible and maybe even likely, that the two are the same.  Often on manifests, you will see variations in the spelling of surnames.  But to be sure, you will still need to verify his birth (baptism) to verify if he was travelling with a relative or on his own at what looks like an age of about 13 years.  None the less, it's a possible start for you.

Perhaps connecting with the German Project would be a great start; I have found them to be very helpful.  

Best of luck, K.

Comments

Thank you so very much for pointing me in the right direction!

Answer 2

Rupp lists him on the Peggy, but Strassburger has three lists for the Peggy and he doesn't appear on any of them, which is a shame, given that one of his lists provides ages.

The date on the profile appears to be an estimate, so he could be the same man. As long as he was born in 1737 or earlier, he would have been at least sixteen and thus appeared on the list.

A sixteen year old could have traveled alone, without family, particularly if he was indentured.

Comments

Thank you for your response. That's very useful information. Do you know of any reasons a person would show up on in Rupp but not in Strassburger? It seems strange that I can only find one source for this name.

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I am not certain what would lead to such a discrepancy between the two sources. Strassburger was published after Rupp and refers to Rupp's work in his book. Strassburger's book is here: https://archive.org/details/pennsylvaniagerm03penn_2/page/n13/mode/2up

Perhaps the introductions to the two works might provide a clue.

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Not sure how much replying to a thread 1.5 years on is frowned upon here, but I've found the reason why: a disagreement in transcription. The original ship list, or at least one of them, is here: https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/psa/islandora/object/psa:1407332?overlay_query=RELS_EXT_isMemberOfCollection_uri_ms%3A%22info%3Afedora/psa%3Aslgp1727%22

The Conrad that Rupp identifies is in the second column, nineteen names down, in the above link. Strassburger instead identifies this person as "Bernhard Winterman", as shown here, name between "Jacob Steigelman" and "Johan Jakub Kleinbub": https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000007109121&view=1up&seq=629&q1=peggy

Strassburger also gives his age as 21 years. Even if Rupp is correct over Strassburger, I am still wary of this and Witmeyer-34 being the same person, as the signature on the original list doesn't seem to match with a signature I found that I believe Witmeyer-34 made in 1768 on the second image of the following land record: https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/612838?mark=c56aa705e593d61f80be88e3b67b0ed32ca31ddc36d363f83d52f563af41ea02