ROOTS & BRANCHES

When the first great wave of genealogy happened in the late 19^th century, it was ignited by the United States centennial in 1876 and continued with the publication of many county biographical histories into the early 1900s.

These county histories – often called “mug books” because they have photographs of many the individuals featured, usually those who had promised to buy copies on the books when salesmen came around to “research” the biographies – are often inaccurate and looked upon as merely a starting point for genealogy.

The story of James Mangan from Florida is proof of both how there are inaccuracies in these books but also how they can steer researchers in the right direction. In Mangan’s case, a family writeup in such a book helped prove his immigrant Egloff’s German village of origin.

F.X. Deckelmeyer of Chambersburg in Franklin County wrote the Egolff family entry for J.L.Floyd’s Genealogical and Biographical Annals of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, that was published in 1911.

Deckelmeyer’s sketch of the Egolffs is more extensive than your average mug book article. He based much of his early history of the clan on a family Bible.

What’s most interesting is the village of origin for the Egolffs that Deckelmeyer identifies: He says that 1746 immigrant Michael Egolff was “born at Engstadt, in the district of Bahlinger, in the Duchy of Wittenberg.”

None of those German place names are exactly correct – but, as garbles go, they were fairly easy to decipher.

Of course, the standard “go-to” tool is now the online version of the Meyers gazetteer of the Second German Empire at the URL, meyersgaz.org.

Since it yielded no “Engstadt” (or a particularly promising variant), I figured I would try the district name, since the district names are usually those of the main city in the district. While there was no “Bahlinger,” there was a “Balingen.”

And, lo and behold, a town named “Engstlatt” was nearby. This village is in Württemberg, which is frequently rendered into “Wittenberg” in American records.

Mangan is fortunate enough not only to have found the Egolff family’s origin – he also has a copy of a letter from 1896 written by Deckelmeyer to a nephew in New Jersey in an attempt to bring that part of the family line up to date. Deckelmeyer ticks off several lists of questions, asking for names and dates of the nephew’s family, including in-laws.

Part of the value of the letter is it shows a diligent genealogist at work in search of documentation – which only adds more credibility to everything Deckelmeyer wrote in the county history.

All in all, you can be sure that every family wishes they had a Deckelmeyer working on their genealogy in the 19^th century!