John Bortz-37 -- A 19th Century Pay It Forward Tale

I became acquainted with John Bortz, several years ago when I discovered that my great-great grandfather James William Whipkey was living with him on his farm in 1870. I speak about him as if I knew him personally, because, through my research, I feel like I have begun to know him as well as anyone can, nearly a century after his death. Genealogical research, as anyone who pursues it can tell you (or their friends and family who have to endure hearing about their latest discoveries) is an obsession. One fact, or person, leads to a desire to discover the truth about another fact or person hinted at through the research. Such was the case with John Bortz-37. (I began to call him that as he was born in 1837 as a type of short-hand to differentiate him from the other men living in his area with the name John Bortz.)

My ancestor James Whipkey had endured hardship as a young boy when his father, William Wipke, who had gone off to fight the Civil War for three years, returned to his family briefly, before disappearing. His absence put the family in severe financial distress, and by 1870, Sarah, (James’ mother) was desperate to provide for her children. She had two of her youngest children with her but Emma had died of Scarlet fever; her son Joseph was in the Poorhouse; her other son, Henry, had been in the Poorhouse but was signed out once indentured to George Roth; and James was fostered to John Bortz. Seven years later, Sarah tragically took her own life. The Coroner’s Report stated that she had been ill and despondent for many years following the disappearance of her husband, and had been struggling to feed her family. Just prior to her death, she was selling what little property remained to her in order to qualify her family for admittance to the Poorhouse again. 

In better times, when the family was all together
 and prior to William Wipke's leaving for the Civil War.

Due to these circumstances, James Whipkey never had the benefit of the presence of a father in his life. It would seem that John Bortz filled that role for some time. The records only tell that James was living with the Bortz family at the time of the census, so there is no way to tell how long he lived there. But it would seem that John Bortz remained in his life as they both are buried in the same churchyard. James lived for quite some time in the vicinity of John Bortz’ farm, according to family lore. It is my belief that John Bortz filled the role of father for James Whipkey.

One can fairly assume that John Bortz might have taken in the young boy of twelve in order to assist in the work on his large farm. Certainly James was put to work on the farm, as all young boys were at the time and there were several other people living on the farm at the time. This includes an elderly retired farmer, a young lady working as a domestic servant, and another 18 year old man. Neither of the young men are identified as farm labor. It would seem that John Bortz-37 had a habit of taking in strays and this led me to discover more about him and his motives for fostering my ancestor.

In an effort to understand more about this man, I needed to know about his origins, so I began to research his early years. During these times, it was not uncommon for family members to take in and raise the children of their kin. I wondered if perhaps James was somehow related to John Bortz through his mother’s line. James Whipkey’s ancestry on his mother’s side includes such names as Seip, Miller, Kemmerer, and Zellner. I was aware that there was some Bortz family who inter-married with the Kemmerers, so I pursued this lead by researching church records for Sarah, James’ mother.

Sarah (Seip) Whipkey was raised in South Whitehall Township and this is where she is found in 1860, shortly after marrying William Wipke. Her baptismal record is found in the Jordan Lutheran Evangelical Church records. This church was established in 1734 and was the church which most of Sarah’s family attended for several generations.

Like many of these early churches, the Lutheran and Reformed congregations shared the use and expense of the church, and the churches were called “Union” churches. (Many of these churches and the Reformed churches are now part of the United Church of Christ.) This arrangement continued for numerous years until 1752, when the Reformed members broke away and constructed their own church about a mile away. The Lutheran church is located in Orefield, South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania and was originally called “The Lutheran Congregation at Macungie, Bucks County.” (The county and township names and lines have changed since those days.) The Reformed church is also located in South Whitehall Township at the edge of Allentown at 1837 Church Road, Allentown, PA 18104.

A search of the baptismal records for John Bortz-37 revealed that he was from the same area as James’ mother. John Bortz’s birth date is known from his burial records at Zionsville. Using this I was able to locate his birth and baptismal in the Records of Jordan Reformed Congregation, South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1765-1858. (This record is available at the Lehigh County Historical Society Library in Allentown, PA as well as for paying subscribers to Ancestry.com.) The record reveals that John Henry Bortz was born on September 18, 1837 and baptized on November 5, 1837. His father is noted as John Bortz, his mother is Mary Reinhard, and there is a notation that the child was illegitimate.

John Bortz-37 Baptismal record

This information led me to look for John Bortz-37’s father, who likely lived in the same area. While there were several men with the name John Bortz in the area, the only one who looked to be of the correct age was John Bortz, who was born in 1815. His birth record is found in the Jordan Lutheran Evangelical Church records. He is the son of Johannes Bortz who was born in 1772 and Anna Maria Kemmerer. The elder Johannes was baptized and is buried in the Jordan Lutheran churchyard. The fact that his wife was a Kemmerer, closely related to James Whipkey’s mother, intrigued me and helped to support the theory that James was placed with kin to raise in 1870. Still, this was not conclusive evidence that John Bortz-1815 was the father of John Bortz-37.

According to the genealogical standards set forth by the Board of Certification for Genealogists published in The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual, it would be incorrect to conclude that John-37 is the son of John-1815 without further proof. These standards recommend “an exhaustive search” of the evidence and it can be supported that I did conduct such a search by ruling out any male named John Bortz who lived in the area where John-37 was born. But in order to definitely make the statement that John-1815 was the correct person, I would need clear evidence. That evidence was found in the will papers for John-1815.

John Bortz, who was born in 1815, died on February 3, 1886 near Trexlertown in Upper Macungie Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. He owned a large farm where he raised his family. The 1850 Federal Census shows that after fathering a child on Maria Reinhard, he relocated south to the Trexlertown area. His eldest child, a son named John, was nine years old at the time.  From this we can infer that he married his wife, Judith Steininger before 1841, or four years after the birth of John-37. By 1880, John is still living on the farm assisted by his son Theodore. On August 6, 1883, he wrote his will and designated his executor – his son-in-law Franklin Stephen (the husband of his daughter Ellen S.C. Bortz, who is identified in the will and census records as Elmina). In this document, he provides for his wife in her widowhood and leaves money to the son of his deceased son. Additionally, he orders that one share each of his estate be given to his son, Theodore and daughter Elmina. On the last page he includes a clause that states  that should his son Theodore and daughter Elmina die without heirs, that their shares should be assigned to “John Bortz (a son of Mary Reinhard) of Upper Milford, Lehigh County (near Buckhorn tavern)” and his heirs forever. This document provides conclusive evidence that John Bortz, born in 1815 and the son of Johannes Bortz is the father of Maria Reinhard's illegitimate son, John Bortz, born in 1837.

Portion of John Bortz-1815 will mentioning
his illegitimate son John Bortz-37

While Theodore did die with heirs, Elmina did not and there is no evidence in her husband’s will that he left anything to John Bortz-37. He was a wealthy man worth over $82,000 at the time of his death. He left one of his large estates to a man who helped him on that farm for many years. Records show he also owned the Bortz farm (of John 1815) consisting of 125 acres and worth over $21, 000. This and other properties were liquidated to settle the estate. Elmina, aka Ellen S.C. (Bortz) Stephen, did leave a will and in it she mentions a John Bortz, but this is likely the same child mentioned in her husband’s will who was the son of her deceased brother. Still, it is possible that she left provision for her half-brother for her will includes the words “"share that I owe him." One can only be hopeful that is the case and her father’s last acknowledgement of his bastard son was not forgotten.

It seemed that John Bortz-37 did well enough for himself, without the inheritance of his father. A search of census records reveals that in 1850 and 1860, John is living with the family of Israel Larosch near Dillingersville in Lower Milford Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. (This area is just south of where he was born.)  Research on this family reveals that Israel’s mother was a Bortz and his wife is a Reinhard. Both families connect directly to John Bortz. Also in the house are John George Reinhard and Joshua Reinhard. (Research at this time has not directly connected them to Israel’s wife or John Bortz.) It appears that kin took in and raised John Bortz.

John’s mother Maria is not found in these records with her son. A search for her reveals that a Mary Reinhard, 54, is living with J. Reinhard, 70 in South Whitehall Township. This could be John’s mother, but at this time, it has not been proven. At any rate, we know that John is not being raised by his mother. Like James Whipkey, he is being fostered by another family.

By July 1, 1863, John is married and living on his own, evidenced by the information he provided for his Civil War registration record. In the next year, he appears on tax rolls as owning a farm and in 1870, the census finds him farming near Shimersville in Lower Milford Township. By this time, he has started a family and has a son and two daughters. This is also the time period when he took in James Whipkey.



John Bortz-37 Tombstone
Zionsville, Lehigh Co, PA

By 1880, John was no longer caring for James, who was 20 years old and working on another farm, but he continued to take in strays. According to the 1880 and 1900 Federal Censuses, there is a young man listed as part of his household in both censuses. John remained in Lower Milford Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania until his death in 1921. At that time, he was still on his farm, but his daughter and son-in-law had taken over farming. He was 82 years old, and was buried in the Old Zionsville Cemetery (also known as the Upper Milford Reformed Church) in Zionsville, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. No will records have been found for him at this time, but judging from the size of his monument, he was well respected and affluent enough to warrant an impressive tombstone.

While there does seem to be a family connection between John Bortz and James Whipkey, it seems that John Bortz motive for taking in and raising a stranger’s child was motivated by his own life experiences and generosity. His life reflected a practice of helping others, and he himself came from a disadvantaged background. Though John was not familiar with the popular buzz-word/phrase “To pay it forward,” it certainly seems that this is exactly what he did in the case of James Whipkey. He must have seen himself in James as a young man – lacking a father to guide him and encourage him to rise above his condition. And he stepped into the role and helped my ggrandfather to be a successive man himself.

James Whipkey did not stay in the farming profession but went on to work for the Railroad. He stayed in that profession all his life. It seemed he followed in John Bortz-37 tradition of helping others.  The 1900 Federal Census  reveals that James and his wife Sarah opened their home to a boarder – a young woman by the name of Jeannie M Rader, 22. They continued to do this - the 1910 Federal census shows that they allowed David Slack, a widower, to stay with them. One might argue that they were simply collecting money from a boarder to help make ends meet, but their house was small and James was gainfully employed.  I would rather think that James was “paying forward” the generosity and support he received as a young child from John Bortz-37.

And so, the mystery of John Bortz-37 has been solved. One story is told, while others yet remain. It is ever that way – in Genealogy.

Tombstone and final resting place of
James William Whipkey and Sarah Gehman
Zionsville, PA

 

Genealogy and Family Research -- The Journey

Genealogy--Family Research.  It is a passion, and an obsession.  Once bitten...committed.....to the search, the hunt, the discovery.  My journey began with a conversation with my mother many years ago...as she was telling me about her mother, who she lost early.  My mother was a teenager when her mother died so I never got to meet her.  My mother's father died when I was a year old, so though I have seen him in a photograph holding me as an infant, I never got to know him either.  My mother always told me that they would have been wonderful grandparents.  But I knew so little of them- mostly just their names- John and Mary.
 

Such common names, but these two people were anything but common.  John Stecko was born in Poland, the son of an immigrant by the same name.  He was a cold miner, who started his career at the age of nine.  But he was more than a miner; he was a craftsman.  He was a weaver of rugs and even the Wilkes-Barre newspaper noted that his rugs were of excellent quality and sought after by many people.  He was a hard worker, typical of his immigrant traditions.  When he wasn't working at the mine, he was working at home...weaving, gardening and raising rabbits.   He was a veteran, having served in the Second World War and he was very active in the local American Legion.  His wife, Mary, had been born in New Jersey, the daughter of immigrants from Slovakia. Her family came from a higher social status and circumstances than John's and the Paciga family didn't approve of Mary's marriage, feeling she had married beneath her station.  My mother related that Mary was part of a large family but my mother did not have much contact with them. This information, as well as a few pictures was the extent of my mother's evidence of her family.

Intrigued, I asked after my father's parentage and origins.  My father related that, as far as he knew, his mother's family was of Swiss and Dutch origins.   By Dutch, he referred to the Pennsylvania Dutch, but he wasn't sure if that meant they were from the Dutch country or were German, because he had heard his family refer to themselves as German and he knew our family name was German. He knew that some of the food his mother prepared came from her Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and traditions.  He could supply me with the names of his grandparents and one great-grandparent, but he knew very little about them.  He told me that his Weiner grandfather, Franz, lived in Wisconsin for a time and that was where his father, Carl, was born, but he didn't know why he had gone there upon entering the country.  There were more mysteries -- for instance,there was a family story about a "brother left behind" in the Old Country. 



Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign on a barn- a commonly recognized type of PA Dutch art.

Armed with this information -- names and a few dates, I began to investigate my family origins.  I had no idea, at that stage, the extent of this journey and how it would lead to an obsession that still grips me after more than 20 years. 

The search for family in the days when I started was largely confined to on-site research and family recollections.  In other words, researchers would ask family to list family members and dates, often referring to family Bibles where some prior ancestor had recorded such valuable information.  Armed with this information, the researcher would travel to the area where their family lived and do on-site research at libraries, churches, and courthouses.  The Internet, as we know it today, hadn't been created yet.  Online messaging consisted of bulletin boards and listservers...not Facebook and Messaging.  Online research through sites like Ancestry.com or My Heritage.com didn't exist either.  Research was slow and tedious.  Eventually, that all changed and it seems like today, we have the world at our fingertips.  And this has made it a lot easier for genealogists like myself to locate ancestors, relatives and connections.

During the first years of my research, I was lucky to locate some other researchers of the Graver line.  This group of women had been researching the line for decades and were very experienced. Some had already begun DNA research, which was in its infancy in genealogical research use. Others had traveled overseas in search of our distant Graber ancestor.  They provided me with a great deal of information, as well as guidance.  Like them, I started my journey through locating documents--census records, birth and death records, marriage records, and wills.  Slowly, my tree grew.

After all these years, I have taken my family lines back 12 generations and solved many of those family mysteries.  My parents and my grandparents did not even know many of the names I discovered.  They did not know where their distant ancestors had come from and what drove them to immigrate to America.  My father's maternal line was indeed Swiss and Dutch - but Pennsylvania Dutch - called such because they spoke Dutch not because they came from the Netherlands country.  Her line traced back to the Gravers who were not English as my mother suspected, thinking the name meant Grave-digger in the manner of taking trade names as surnames. But Graver was originally Graeber, and the family came from Bern, Switzerland most likely, and they and their relatives were part of the community known as the Pennsylvania Dutch who settled in Southeastern Pennsylvania. 

What my father never suspected was that they had been in this country for a long time, coming in about 1720 and that they were colonists. They and their neighbors played an active and important role in the founding and development of this country.  Several served in the Revolutionary War, and through this association, their descendants were eligible to be recognized in several organizations honoring these patriots.  This includes the Daughters of the American Revolution  (DAR) and Sons of the American Revolution (SAR).  Unfortunately my father passed away before I could prove that last fact, but he was able to learn that his mother's family had deep roots in this country.

The photograph here is of the gravesite of Jacob Gehman who was born in 1753 and served for several years in the Revolutionary War. His record includes service as 4th Class in Captain David Strauss' Company (8) Hereford Township, Berks County PA Militia, First Battalion, 1777-1780; and as 4th Class in Captain Miller's Company (8) Hereford Township, Berks County PA Militia, First Battalion, 1783.  He is buried in St. Peter’s Union Church Cemetery in Lower Macungie, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania.  The church is located on St. Peter Road, between Shimersville and Seisholtzville,  just east of the Lehigh-Berks county line.

I also made incredible discoveries about my father's paternal line.  The original spelling is Wiener, but my grandfather changed the spelling to Weiner.  The most information we had about my father's grandfather Franz was that he was a butcher by trade; of German or Austrian descent; had come into the country around 1904; and that he went to Wisconsin for several years before relocating to Allentown, Pennsylvania where he lived for the remainder of his life.  My father seemed to recall that he was possibly from Stuttgart, but he wasn't certain of this fact.  After examining Franz' application for naturalization as a citizen, I discovered that his town of birth was Lemisgrub.  This is the German version of the town's name as it was known to Franz when it was a part of Bohemia.  But its name was changed to Hliniste when it became a holding of Czechoslovakia  after the country's formation in 1918. (This was after Czechoslovakia declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.)  Further research revealed that after the Berlin Wall fell, and with it the communist hold on the region, Czechoslovakia was peacefully divided into Slovakia and the Czech Republic.  Hliniste was now part of the Czech Republic.  My father had been correct to identify his grandfather as German and Austrian both.  He came from a village along the border with Germany in an area that had been settled by German families centuries before his time. But since this land was held by the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the rule of the Hapsburgs of Austria during Franz's early life and residence there, he correctly identified himself as Austrian.

Franz Wiener's Ellis Island entry record

The town of birth for an immigrant ancestor is critical information for a genealogist.  Armed with this information, it is possible to continue the search for relatives "across the pond," or overseas.  The  town name can lead to church parishes that served the community and therefore to church records which list the person's date of birth and parents.  Unfortunately because this area was under Communist rule for so long, I feared it was unlikely that records would be available from the local churches.

The Church of Latter Day Saints (commonly known as the Mormon Church) is very involved in
Genealogy and Family Research.  They believe that any family member located and verified can
be brought into the church and "saved" through a form of absentee baptism, resulting in a reunion
with the entire line in the Afterlife. (This concept is explained by the Church on their website at here)  Because this is so important to them, the Church has spent considerable money and assets in collecting and storing genealogical information.  They have the largest genealogical library and archives in Salt Lake City, the headquarters for their faith.  They have also sent groups of missionaries into countries all around the world in order to photograph and copy records, especially Church Records.  These records have been micro-filmed and are in storage in Salt Lake, and can be viewed there or in local Family History Centers.

Because the area my father's Wiener line came from was in a communist controlled area during the time these missionaries had done their work, I knew it was unlikely that they would have travelled into these towns to copy their records.  Therefore, I felt the chance of researching in these valuable records was pretty remote, unless I was able to actually travel to the area.  But the certain thing about genealogy is that you are never truly finished with it.  There are always new records becoming available, new leads to follow.  In this case, I discovered in the early part of last year (2014) that the Czech Republic had digitized and made the church records for this area available online.  I spent three months immersed in an intensive examination of these records, reading copies of the actual church book pages.  Through this research, I was able to make discoveries about my Weiner family and extend my family tree back an additional 9 generations!  Most importantly, I was able to find additional family lines and connections to other people living in this country.  I met more cousins, including one who was as actively researching this branch of my family as I was and who had conducted DNA research on this line.  My own DNA study confirmed our relationship.
 

Map of Bohemia, showing its position relative to other European countries.  Lemisgrub, or Hliniste, is located along the western border in the Bohmerwald, or the Bohemian Forest, which is also known as the Sumava Mountains..

This research also answered my questions about why Franz went to Wisconsin.  He settled in an area where many of his Bohemian neighbors had immigrated.  Suddenly the names of families in the area seemed so familiar.  They were from the same village as Franz, or from a nearby village.  These people had come to America together, leaving their homeland, and created a Bohemian community in Wisconsin. Suddenly, it made sense for Franz to travel so far inland upon his arrival to America.

Research into my mother's family has produced some interesting information.  While I have not been able to discover a great deal about her father's line, I was very lucky in my examination of her mother's side of the family.  Luckily, my mother's cousin, Joe Sasjack, became interested in his family.  He was fortunate in that he had maintained close contact with his Paciga family, unlike my mother and her parents.  The Paciga's lived in the Passaic, New Jersey area for most of their lives.  My mother's grandmother was Sophia Galovic, the wife of John Paciga.  After talking to the family about their origins, Joe came into the possession of a letter Sophia wrote to family in her country of origin and from this we were able to determine her place of birth.  Sophia was born in 1888 in Relov, Szepes, Slovakia.  This area is also known as Spis, and is located in the northcentral part of Slovakia near the Polish border.  According to the website, Family Tree DNA for the Spis DNA project, "Spis County was the fourth largest source of emigrants to the United States [from Slovakia] following Zemplin, Abov, and Saros Counties.  An estimated 11 % of the Spis population of eastern Slovakia emigrated to work in the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania, the steel mills of Western Pennsylvania, and the many factories in New Jersey." (Information on the DNA project can be found here.)



Houses in the village of Relov

Following this lead, I contacted the LDS (Morman Church) and arranged to borrow and read a micro-film copy of the Church Records from Relov.  One of those missionary teams referred to earlier had photographed the town church's records and through this source, I was able to make numerous discoveries regarding Sophia's origins.  Like Franz Wiener, I noticed that families from Relov relocated to areas of this country in groups.  In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, where Sophia and her family relocated to (and my grandmother, Mary Paciga, and my mother were born) can be found numerous families from Relov.  Several of these are connected to Sophia (Galovic) Paciga's line.

At this time I have nearly 9000 members listed in my tree.  I don't believe that family research is all about how many members are in your tree.  It is not a competition, but some researchers seem to think it is, as they proudly proclaim, "I have X number of people in my tree...How many do you have?"  It seems there are two types of researchers in this regard--- One type includes the ones I call Number Collectors... those who just work at adding names and dates to their tree, often without documentation to back up their connections to their tree.  Then there are the family historians... the ones who collect stories to go along with the names; who collect documents to prove the connections between people but also to piece together a mosaic of a person's life.  A census record tells them about the trade of a grandfather; a later census documents his migration across the country with close relatives who are also found on the same census page.  I prefer the second approach as I believe it is important to try to understand who our ancestors were, what was important to them, and what motivated them in their life's choices.  Because my family could not tell me much about my ancestors, I have had to rely on the records of their lives to tell their story. 

Yes, I have 9000 relatives, mostly dead, but relatives nonetheless.  The tree is full of stories, some shameful, others sad.  But each story is important, a testament to the struggles my ancestors faced and overcame.  Obviously the tree contains living relatives, and this includes the new friends and family I have discovered through my research.  Most I still maintain some level of contact with to this day...some more than others.  And some I have even had the pleasure of meeting, while there are others I am still planning to meet.  So despite the fact my own close relatives number few, I have found many additional kin as a result of my research.