From the Siegerland to Germanna

Preface by Horst Schmidt-Böcking 7
Preface by Joachim Frank 13
Introduction 17
The lay of the Siegerland: Siegen and Trupbach 19
Trupbach—a short historical review 27
History of iron mining in the Siegerland and Trupbach 33
Charcoal production and the ’Haubergswirtschaft‘ 45
The importance of farming 53
An ‘Amicable Donation’—
Historical background of the 1714 emigration 63
Emigration in 1712 and final settlement in 1714 71
The Trupbach emigrants—family trees 75
The Trupbach emigrants—birth houses 79
The New Contact between Germanna and the Siegerland 95
Famous descendents of the Siegerland/Trupbach emigrants 97
Acknowledgments 107
References and Remarks 108 Appendix I:
The 1989 Siegener Zeitung article 112 Appendix II:
Encounter in an airplane 117
Appendix III:
Ancestry research on the American side by Benjamin Clark Holtzclaw, Jr. 123
Appendix IV:
Ancestry research on the American side by William Irvin Utterback 127
Appendix V:
On the origin of the Otterbach family 133
Appendix VI:
Family trees of the emigrant relatives in the Siegerland 136
Johannes Otterbach 136
Hans Holtzklau 149
Johann Kemper 166
Johannes Fischbach 182
Christoffel Richter 200
Henrich Spielmann 214
Johannes Brombach 230
Hans Merten 244
The Authors 244