Moses Berkey (1822 - 1908)

Born 18 Apr 1822 in Near Farmerstown, Clark Twp., Holmes Co., OH

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah (Mast) Burkey — married 19 Feb 1843 in Holmes Co., OH

Descendants

Died 19 Jan 1908 at age 85 in Berlin, Holmes, Ohio, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Francis Berkey [send private message]

Biography

Moses is AKA BK15124 and was married to Hannah Irwin and is going to furnish a link back into The Berkey Books 1&2 according to Wade Miller of Dover, OH ("informant" to Ruth Berkey Reichley publisher). I was personally acquainted with both Wade Miller and Ruth Berkey Reichley years ago before both of them died and was never quite able to straighten them out in time to piece all of it together. Wade had 23 thick loose leaf binders full of genealogy that I would have loved to have browsed with him. Ruth was so impressed with our efforts that she presented my wife Mary Ann with a quilting frame that the Berkey family brought from the "old country" (Switzerland) in the early 1700s. G&K only mentions Hannah Irwin as spouse but Moses was married 1st in 1842 to a Mast that appears to be named Sarah. Hannah happened in 1846. Information on Moses was the original person for Line 11 in the original 1984 edition but by the publication of the 1995 2nd edition Wade had merged Moses into Line 3 which starts with Jacob Beirki who is AKA BK1 in G&K. This beginning of Line 3 appears on page 290 and Jacob is generation 1. with Moses appearing as the 4th generation 5. under 4. Jacob Berkey page 321 who is AKA BK1512 in G&K. The biography goes,"This is the "Moses Burkey" line. Moses went to OH in 1834 with his parents, but returned to PA to finish education as a Veterinary Surgeon. He and family migrated from PA through OH to IN in 1865 and returned to Berlin, Holmes Co., OH. The old homestead with the same house was in existence in 1966. I should mention that Jacob was Amish and when Moses decided to convert to Mennonite he changed his spelling to Burkey. William meanwhile was Lutheran as was the family right on down to myself as generation 6 from William as 1. Now come the problems. My 3rd G-grandfather William Berkey was living in the household with Jacob from the time he migrated to OH with his 2nd wife who was Catherine Miller. William was single until he married on 26 May 1825 in Berlin so there seems to be about a 10 year mistake in migration date. Also Moses is said to have married in 1842 to Sarah Mast and by this time my ancestral family had grown to be William & wife Elizabeth Grove & son Orange Grove Berkey b. 29 Apr 1826, Catherine Winchester Berkey b. 15 Aug 1827 & twins Elizabeth Amanda and William Hamilton b.13 Apr 1834. So you can see that Jacob & Catherine were here long before 1834. William bought a lot in what is now Baltic and built the 1st house there in 1849 and moved there with Elizabeth and the twins who were about 15 at that time. Before then Orange had headed for the west to seek his fortune and Catherine had married Joseph Hochstetler Aka DJH-4263 and moved to his farm located near Trail, Walnut Creek Twp., Holmes Co., OH along county road 172 beside the stream called Hochstetler Run.

Sources

G&K, DBH, DJH

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/114363622/moses-burkey
• Personal family information both written and from family Bibles gathered over several years of travel and library research. Original edition The Berkey Book and also 2nd edition which has many Berkeys that I personally researched as well as Line 26 which is started with Orange Grove Berkey. This is as close as our branch comes but in Line 3 appears his younger sister, Catherine Winchester Berkey who married Joseph Hochstetler who is DJH-4263. This was actually a mistake on the part of the informant named Wade Miller whose mother was a Burkey and since Catherine was in the household of Jacob Berkey he thought she was his daughter but she was not. Many of my relatives are in Descendants of Jacob Hochstetler first published in 1912 and the 2nd of his family publications Descendants of Barbara Hochstedler & Christian Stutzman first published in 1938 by Rev. Harvey Hostetler, D.D. long before personal computers. FEB