ROOTS & BRANCHES

The conversation began as many such interactions do.
I was at a weekly appointment and the man at the checkout desk said he’d noted my last name was the same as his grandmother’s.
He also told me that he and his mother had visited the home of Conrad Beidler, an 18th century–vintage stone miller’s mansion in Robeson Township, Berks County, and wondered whether I knew anything about that house.
I imagine I chuckled a bit before telling him Conrad was my fifth-great-grandfather and that in the past I’ve portrayed “the spirit of Conrad Beidler” at open houses (the home is part of the Allegheny Aqueduct park owned by the Berks County parks commission).
The man identified himself as Karl Guldner and said they’d often wondered if he and his mother are descendants of Conrad the builder.
I probably chuckled a little bit more since in addition to the descendants of Conrad (himself a son of 1727 immigrant Johannes Beydeler), that part of Berks County is where a 1736 immigrant named Johannes Bütler had settled, too.
The names were similar enough under German-language phonetics that the families were at times confused for one another in records—the 1736 immigrant’s descendants often used the spelling Btiler—so I cautioned Guldner that this might be his ancestry. Nevertheless, I asked him to write down as far as he knew his ancestry and that I’d see if I could extend his line.
Guldner knew his Beidler line back to his great-grandfather, who he believed was named Earl Beidler and was born in the late 1800s.
Fortunately, this was far enough back in time that large databases of records such as the U.S. Census and Pennsylvania marriage and death certificates. Find A Grave memorials were also a starting point for connecting generations.
Guldner’s great-grandfather turned out to be named Benjamin Earl Beidler (Guldner was worried that would throw me but thankfully there were enough other names he gave me that I was comfortable that I had found the right person).
Through census and probate files, I was able to show that Benjamin Earl was great-great-grandson of Conrad’s older son Johannes (I’m a descendant of Conrad’s younger son Peter). I determined that I was a sixth cousin to Guldner’s mother and was happy to tell Guldner that he and his mother indeed were therefore descendants of Conrad.
And then came the “bonus.”
Benjamin Earl’s mother turned out to be named Mary Ellen … with the maiden name of Bitler.
That was my third chuckle of the day. Because, yes, it turned out that Mary Ellen was a great-great-granddaughter of the 1736 immigrant, giving Guldner both a Beidler and a Bitler line.
Call it a Christmas miracle! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!