tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73167004169278598502024-03-07T21:37:42.122-06:00Vaught Family HistoryTracing the history of the Vaught and allied families.Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14676052455828252373noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-16097021593562524662012-02-10T12:32:00.001-06:002012-02-10T12:46:08.642-06:00Turn your handwriting into a computer font to save for posterity...<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I came across a website last night called <a href="http://www.myscriptfont.com/">My Script Font</a> that allows users to create a font for use on your computer and word processing programs (or anything that uses a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueType">true-type font</a>) based on their own handwriting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As someone who has kept a journal since he was 14, I have struggled with the concept of typing or writing my journal. On the one hand there's something incredibly satisfying about handwriting a journal in a book, ready-made to be passed on to the next generation or two. What I wouldn't give to have a journal written by Johan Paulus Vogt from the 1730s, or from Gasper Vaught during the time he was in the Revolution! As I grew up and moved into the computer age, I saw the possibility of typing my journal and the benefits it provided: speed (I can type about 80 words per minute, waaaay faster than writing), the ability to insert pictures and what not into the entry without the hassle of getting pictures developed or printed and tape, and thanks to faster typing, the ability to record more of my thoughts and what not in the same amount of time (without a hand cramp!). Of course, for portability, you can't beat a book and pen. So, through the years I've flipped flopped back and forth between typing and writing, torn between the two mediums but understanding that typing is the way of the future. Outside of an academic environment, who really <i>writes</i> anything of substance (not including signatures, etc.) anymore anyway?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enter www.myscriptfont.com. They provide a template where you write each letter of the alphabet, captial and lowercase, all the numbers and most of the commonly used symbols (@,#,$,%, etc.). You scan the document, upload it to their servers, wait about 2 minutes and a .ttf file is ready for you to download and install. About 10 minutes start to finsih in my case after messing up a few templates. Then...the result as typed in Word about 5 minutes ago:</span><br />
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<span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Rw3s0MTGw4/TzVgFiMUMxI/AAAAAAAAAHc/acP-smjRVck/s400/my+font.jpg" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For better or worse, that's my handwriting! I simply am amazed at how easy the process was...and it is 100% free! What a wonderful tool...just think...if we can get loved ones to fill out the template, we can have a digital format of their handwriting for posterity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why don't you just keep a letter someone wrote? Makes sense, but think about how few and far between letters, etc., are for most of us. The last time I wrote a letter by hand was...what, grade school? 20 years or more ago! Even in college and law school, most of my note taking was done on a laptop computer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everything is email or text messaging nowadays. So...now you can type a letter in your own handwriting for grandkids, etc. This may be helpful for older generations that don't have the ability to write letters to kids anyomre, but may have access to a computer. Even better, one could get grandma to write the letters on the template, then let her dictate a message to her as yet unborn great-grand children, type it for her and print and boom, instant family treasure....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Really quickly, one could build up a collection of handwriting from eveyrone in the family. Just print the template and mail it to dear Aunt Sally....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One bit of advice if you want to do this as I've suggested: save yourself some hassle and download the template to your computer (it's a .pdf file) instead of simply printing off the website. When you print off the website, it tends to be a bit larger than it needs to be and it throws off the processing when you upload your info. I tried and failed 3 times this way before saving the template and printing it off my computer instead. Once and done going this way. Very simple, just follow the on screen instructions. You may want to print a few templates at once...I messed up a few because they want you to use a medium tipped felt pen, which I am NOT comfortable using, so a few characters were a little squiggly. Once scanned and changed to the correct dpi (300) I uploaded the file and in moments downloaded the .ttf file and dropped into the font folder in Windows. Just be sure to rick click on the .ttf file and click on properties, then select a the bottom of the dialog box where it says "Unblock" before you drop it in the fonts folder in Windows. It's as simple as that!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sure there's more applications for genealogy out there for this. What do you think? </span><br />
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<span id="goog_1215343572"></span><span id="goog_1215343573"></span>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-27371231237779807102012-01-04T11:36:00.000-06:002012-01-04T11:36:50.407-06:00Chapter 1 from the Vaught Chronicles<div class="NormalText" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As promised, here is Chapter 1 from my book on the Vaught family...I hope you enjoy. If you you like it, you can purchase the entire book for just $15 by clicking <a href="http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-vaught-chronicles/18415620?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1">HERE</a>.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 26.0pt;"><br />
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</span></div><div align="center" class="NormalText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 26.0pt;">Chapter I:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="NormalText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 22.0pt;">Origin of the Vaught Surname</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="NormalText" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">I. What's in a name?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Family historians often encounter many forms of names and surnames in the course of their research. Over time names change; spellings change; women get married; children adopted. In order to understand one's own name, one must understand the history behind that name. So how are names "made"?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There are several methods that mankind has invented over the millennia of recorded history for identifying families of individuals. The following humble list contains but a few of the more common naming trends that researchers encounter with European ancestors.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Patronymic<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Webster's on-line dictionary describes patronymic as: <span class="ssens"><i>a name derived from that of the father or a paternal ancestor usually by the addition of an affix</i><sup> </sup></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span class="ssens"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For most of recorded history, the simplest, easiest way to name someone usually held sway, i.e., a first (and only) name. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Take for instance, ancient Ireland. When the Gaelic culture was dominant a man's name might be Conan. While today's scholar might instantly think of a sword-wielding barbarian with an Austrian accent, the ancient Gaels would have understood "Conan" to mean "wolf or hound". So perhaps this fellow's parents thought the boy moved like a wolf or was loyal, like a hunting hound. Perhaps they named the infant thus to hopefully instill in the young lad the qualities and strengths of the animal.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thousands of years ago, a single name would suffice. If someone was looking for Conan in a certain part of Ireland, chances are they would find the right one eventually because there just weren't that many people alive as there are now.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> According to the US Census Bureau, in 1,000 B.C. there were only 50 million people estimated to be alive on the planet <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>. As time marched on, the population grew and in order to differentiate between the Conan over here or the Conan across the river Conan's father's name was added to his own. It is a simple, elegant and informative way of telling the difference between Conan ap Doughal and Conan ap Connor (who may have lived across the river). "Ap" merely means "son of". Over time, this practice changed too and now it is much more common to see Conan O'Doughal or Conan O'Conner. Again, the "O' " merely means "son of". <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Occupation or Place<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For those cultures or areas that did not resort to using a patronymic name to identify individuals of a family or clan, often times what resulted was another, equally simple and informative solution. One would apply his birthplace or residence as a name to distinguish himself or his family. For example, a man living in Paris but born in Brittany might call himself Jacques de Bretagne, as opposed to his neighbor, Jacques de Avignon. These names simply mean, "Jacques of Bretagne" (Brittany) and "Jacques of Avignon".<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> For simplicity this naming pattern was useful for a while, because in theory there were only so many Jacques born in Bretagne at any one time. However, as the populations grew and people moved from location to location, one's name may change as well. For example, if our Jacques was born in Bretagne and was known was de Bretagne, and he moved to Tours, for ease of use he may just change his name to Jacques de Tours. If there is already a Jacques living in Tours, this could get confusing so perhaps Jacques would keep his "de Bretagne" after all. It all depended on the circumstances in which our ancestors found themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> Another method was to call himself after his trade. "John, who lives by the river" isn't as easy to remember or say as "John the miller", which quickly became “John Miller”. Perhaps the most famous example is the humble blacksmith. "John who is the blacksmith" over time became "John the smith" who in turn became “John Smith”. Now when the tax collector came calling, it was easy for someone to see how John who lived by the river was employed as well as John who worked at the forge.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Descriptive Name<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This is perhaps the easiest of all. If there were two John's living in a valley and one had red hair and the other black, one became John the Red, the other John the Black. A tall John might become John of the "longshanks"<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> or John of the "longstride". They might not be the easiest to recount to someone, but they were typically very easy to make up.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The <i>Surnom</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In France one practice that was popular among the Normans of the 11th century was called the "surnom", quite literally, on documents of the day, a second name was placed over ("sur" in French) the given name (our Jacques, for example)<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>. Instead of having to write out "Jacques de Bretagne", on official documents he was listed as Jacques and "Bretagne" would be written above. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> </span></b><b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Rome<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Up until the dawn of the Middle Ages, the only well known group in Western Europe to use anything other than descriptive names, patronymic, or occupational/place names to distinguish individuals were the Romans. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> When Rome threw off the yoke of its early tyrant kings and became the shining Republic known in history, typically only the upper class---the nobles---had more than one name. More often than not this was merely a given name and a descriptive name indicating something about the person or his deeds. In this way the Romans could distinguish him from the next citizen with that name.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> As the population of the Republic grew, the stock of given names was not matching population growth so groups of families gathered into clans using the same familial name. In this matter, a Darius Brutus, for example, would be Darius, of the Brutus clan (or family) as opposed to Darius Julius, who belonged to the Julian clan.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Romans perfected governmental bureaucracy and at the height of the Empire, many Romans---noble and baseborn---had two, three even <i>four</i> names. They were the <i>praenomen</i>, the <i>gens</i>, and the <i>cognomen</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Many people equate this with the modern practice of first, middle, and last names, but it is not exactly the case. <i>Praenomen</i> was the first name. The <i>gens</i> was the family name (our last name) and the <i>cognomen</i> was what we would call a nickname. Some people were known only by their <i>cognomen</i> and it became so popular that they used it as a <i>gens</i> name as well <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><b>The Dark Ages<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">After the fall of Rome in the late 5th century, people in Europe quickly forgot the Roman ways they had grown accustomed to for centuries. Education, literacy, the rule of law, everything the Romans provided crumbled and drifted away on the winds of turmoil and war during the Dark Ages. So went also the practice of <i>praenomen</i>, <i>gens</i>, and <i>cognomen</i>. People once again grew accustomed to calling each other by patronymic, descriptive or occupational/place names. Thus was the way of the conquerors, the Franks, Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals. These Germanic peoples had no use for three or four names as the Romans. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">As mentioned above, the French began to adopt the <i>surnom</i> practice for efficiency in records for the church and government. William, Duke of Normandy and later King of England (no last name, just occupational descriptions!) brought the practice to England and imposed on it on his nobles. However, this had little or no effect on the native Anglo-Saxons, who continued to use the old ways. Upper class Anglo-Saxons began to adopt Norman ways, perhaps as a survival tool, but for the common man out in the mud with the pigs and cattle, it mattered little what names nobles called themselves. He was John who lived by the river and that was fine by him. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-indent: .5in;"><b>The Black Death: 1348-1350<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">The Plague. No other two words could strike gut-wrenching fear into the heart of the bravest man in the 14th century like "the plague". Between 1348 and 1350, as any school book or website will tell you, almost 30-60% (that's upwards of 25 million people) of Europe's population died of the sickness then called The Black Death. Today we know it as bubonic plague.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">Imagine: of everyone you know, 1 out of 2 friends, family and relatives are dead in a matter of days. There are stories where the people in cities were dying so fast that they couldn't be buried. Bodies piled up, rotting in the streets. Mass hysteria and a general exodus of populated and infected cities and towns was commonplace in the middle of the 14th century. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">News traveled slow---often the sickness would arrive within days of someone arriving to warn people of it in neighboring regions. By then it was too late and people had already started dying in outlying areas. Whole towns were decimated or deserted in a matter of weeks.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">Ask yourself: What would America, your state, your town look like if over the next week, half the people took sick and died? In modern terms that would be roughly 150 million Americans. Many places in this country would be certifiable ghost towns. Such was the scene in Europe in the second half of the 14th Century.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "System","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">A fellow genealogist, researching the Taylor family has arrived at the conclusion that the Black Death was the prime motivator for people of European ancestry to adopt the French practice of <i>surnom</i> and apply it to everyone, not just the nobles. The idea makes sense and I believe it to be the most logical theory I've read on the subject and will adopt it here. Whether you agree or not, the dates and names don't lie.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">In the last 50 years of the 14th century nearly all family <i>surnoms</i>---the modern Anglicized form is "<i>surname</i>"---were created. Again this is specifically in reference to Europeans. In Asia, the Chinese have used surnames (as we consider them) for thousands of years, by Imperial decree<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "System","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">So…half the population of Europe is dead; the other half mired in grief. Suddenly something is realized by everyone. There's an awful lot of land and only half as many people left to own and work it. For nobles, this is a double edged sword. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">On the one hand, it's great! Lord Bumpinbottom can now claim rights to his dead neighbor’s property. On the other hand, half the servants and serfs are dead and the survivors have realized they are now a prized commodity. They can now set a price on their labor. If no one wants to pay, they are free to move on, nearly guaranteed <i>some</i> noble will pay them because the upper class has very little choice anymore. This titanic power shift lurched from the hands of the upper class and aristocracy to more towards the middle. It was a complete reshaping of Medieval society and would have lasting affects to this day. For our purposes, the biggest affect is on names.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">But how to keep everything from degenerating back into Dark Ages style chaos of warring factions and clan feuds erupting into wide scale conflicts? For stability, local governments must survive. Otherwise, the chiefs and warlords (i.e., knights) would be at each other’s throats in an instant, vying for more power. A central (or as central as was possible) <i>must </i>maintain control and order. Laws must be followed to keep society together. So what keeps a government in power? Taxes. And how do ensure taxes continue to flow into the king’s coffers after half the population is wiped out? A quite simple method was developed and implemented within two generations between 1350 and 1400. The Surname.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">Let’s use the two John’s from above as an example. For tax records, the plague survivor, John, who lived by the mill and worked as a miller became John Miller. This made him easily distinguished from John the blacksmith, who became John Smith. The two men could be quickly and easily registered, recorded and taxed with little effort on the part of the sovereign. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">In fact, surnames fairly explode into the records system all across Britain and Europe and Western Civilization is changed forever. Further, the powers that be decree that those newly minted surnames be inherited by future generations to keep families in order as well. It may have been a stop-gap measure to keep things together for a few years or decades, but the practice took. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="NormalText" style="text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">II. So what about</span><span style="font-family: Algerian; font-size: 20.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 20.0pt;">VAUGHT</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">?</span><span style="font-family: Algerian; font-size: 20.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The origins of our <i>Vaught </i>surname<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> have been traced to the progenitor or "founding father" of our family, <b><i>Johan Paulus Vogt</i></b>. The name <i>Vogt</i> is an occupation-name<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> which in time became a surname adopted or imposed after the Black Death. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:formulas> <v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"> <o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"> </o:lock></v:path></v:stroke></v:shapetype><v:shape alt="vogtsbauernhof.jpg" id="Picture_x0020_0" o:spid="_x0000_s1027" style="height: 126pt; left: 0; margin-left: 210.75pt; margin-top: 25.8pt; mso-position-horizontal-relative: text; mso-position-horizontal: absolute; mso-position-vertical-relative: text; mso-position-vertical: absolute; mso-wrap-distance-bottom: 0; mso-wrap-distance-left: 9pt; mso-wrap-distance-right: 9pt; mso-wrap-distance-top: 0; mso-wrap-style: square; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 253.5pt; z-index: 1;" type="#_x0000_t75"> <v:imagedata o:title="vogtsbauernhof" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\SMV\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg"> <w:wrap type="square"> </w:wrap></v:imagedata></v:shape><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Vogt </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">is obviously Germanic, yet it was also common as a <i>Swiss </i>name. In fact, in modern times, Vogt is quite prevalent throughout northern Austria, as well as southern Germany and Switzerland. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There is a German town called Vogt just east of Ravensburg near Lake Konstance on the Swiss/German border. The Heimatmuseum, translated as the "Folk Heritage Museum" for the Black Forest is called the Vogtsbauernhof, or "the judge's farmhouse"<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-text-raise: 2.0pt; position: relative; top: -2.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="right" class="NormalText" style="text-align: right; text-indent: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Vogtsbauernhof, in the Black Forest, Germany</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="right" class="NormalText" style="text-align: right; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Our Vogts derive from southwestern Germany, an area that came to be known as the Palatinate during the Middle Ages and was the object of some of Europe's bloodiest wars. The Palatinate was considered to be the "Garden of Europe"</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">and was formed before the Charlemagne created the Holy Roman Empire. The Palatinate lies between the Rhine, Neckar, and Main Rivers and was reputed to be the most fertile region of Europe. It extended over a hundred miles north and south of the three rivers, and sixty miles east and west, so while not exactly the largest section of Europe, it attracted a lot of attention for such a small size. Thus in many records in the New World, immigrants from this section of Germany are listed as Palatines or Palatinates.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Despite being known for a German name, Vogt is actually the modern form of an ancient <i>Roman</i> occupational title that has similarities to a lawyer, judge, sheriff and military commander. In a nutshell, the Vogt of a particular area was the enforcer of the local ruler's will and laws---a man of no mean rank. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">VOGT</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">: </span>German: occupational name for a bailiff, farm manager, or other person with supervisory authority, Middle High German <i>voget</i>, Late Latin <i>vocatus</i>, from Latin <i>advocatus</i>, past participle of <i>advocare</i> ‘to call upon (to help)’. The term originally denoted someone who appeared before a court on behalf of some party not permitted to make direct representations, often an ecclesiastical body which was not supposed to have any dealings with temporal authorities.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> </div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is logical that after the fall of Rome, the Germans, who never had been conquered by Rome's legions<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> would try to grasp some of the fading glory of that ancient civilization and make it their own. This happened all across Gaul and Britain when the Roman standard fell to the ground. Those who had known civilized life longed for the old days and tried hard to hang on to Roman ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">People living in the barbarian occupied areas---like Germany---saw the difference a civilized life could mean and tried to adopt Roman ways. Much of the wisdom of ancient Rome disappeared into the twilight as the Dark Ages began in the late 400s AD. In the aftermath of the Germanic conquest of the Western Roman Empire, skills such as building structures with concrete, the science of aqueducts, and making clear glass windows vanished for a thousand years. Most of those skills and sets of knowledge would not be "rediscovered" until the Renaissance (1400-1600 AD) and the Industrial Revolution (1800s).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">One Roman concept the conquering Germans evidently latched onto was the term <i>advocatus</i>. Today, the term is still used in our legal system: an advocate is a lawyer or other representative of someone (usually involved in a lawsuit, but one can advocate any goal, idea, plan, or thing). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As the dying embers of the light that was once Rome faded into obscurity and the Dark Ages gripped Europe in a mailed fist, those who had been called upon to help or to enforce the local rulers will were known informally as the <i>vocatus</i>. Perhaps to impart a bit of legitimacy to the rulers overlordship, a Roman term was used to keep the population in check. Over time the pure Roman term was bastardized and these men were called the <i>voget</i> and finally they became the <i>vogt</i> as the Dark Ages came to a reluctant end and the Middle Ages arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In the 10th Century AD, the title of Vogt was solidified as the proctor of the church in civil affairs and presided over the chief court---usually a local nobleman such as a Baron. Therefore we can assume that to hold the office of "Vogt" for the town or village one had to be a clergyman or a local judge or someone of import. This is entirely reasonable, as in the Middle Ages the most learned (and therefore qualified to be a judge of written laws) men to be found were found in the Church.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><pre style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In German, the name is pronounced as FO:KT. The German pronunciation of "O:" has no clear cut English equivalent sound, but is closest to the O in the English word low.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In small cities and towns in southern Germany, there were three branches of government. Things pertaining to issues of religion were decided by the bishop, appointed by the church hierarchy. Things pertaining to matters of taxes and armies were decided by the <i>Herzog</i>, or Duke, appointed by the King. Things pertaining to legal matters were decided by the Vogt, or the judge, also appointed by the King. Because court was often held in the Vogt's house, he often had the largest house in the area. <o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Actually the scope of what this administration rank meant is much wider than is stated above, as the scope of the duties and jurisdictions that came with it varied from state to state. Germany had been a patchwork of some 302 or so states. In some of them, they had no Vogts, but used other terms instead. Those who are interested in the history of Germany and Prussia may also find the term "drost." A Drost had responsibilities similar to a "Vogt" but was more like a mayor or overseer than a judge. A Drost had to care for the administration of a principality or a part of a principality and he was appointed directly by the principal, normally the Herzog or Duke. The function of a drost is similar to a Landrat today.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A Vogt also was involved in the administrative affairs but more in the legal aspects of governance. Vogts were something like lawyers, and acted principally as advocates of the Duke. In a Catholic area like Cappeln and Essen (Oldbg.) Vogts could be lawyers of the church as well.<o:p></o:p></span></pre><pre style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The vast range or scope of the meaning for the term "Vogt" is difficult to define. The Vogt in Theodor Storm's book, <i>Der Schimmelreiter</i>, was the superior in all matters that related to the sea coast fortification against high waters ... Deich-Vogt ... In the Original German version of the story of William Tell (the fellow who shot the apple off his son's head), it was an "evil" Vogt who made poor William do that! Oh well, every family has a black sheep or two. The Vogt in William Tell had much power, as he was more a regions, not just a towns, administrator. Often, the term "vogt" is combined with another German word that describes what the "Vogt" is responsible for. Examples are: Deichvogt (Deich-dike, seawall) as stated above, Stadtvogt (Stadt=town, city), Landvogt (Land=country [not town, city]), Gerichtsvogt (Gericht=court of law), and Marktvogt (Markt=market, market-place). The term "Vogt" is used in German in connection with persons who are inspectors, surveyors, or the manager of many types of institutions such as churches, orphanages, and jails.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></pre><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The early to mid 18th Century saw the final bloody results of the great wars of the 17th Century and the destruction that was wrought upon the Palatine. The effect was horrendous. Whole regions of Germany were completely deserted; entire towns killed or run off during the wars. Crops scavenged by marauding armies or left to wilt untended by farmers run off their lands or killed. The plague of war visited the Palatinate for generation after weary, bloodied generation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is easy to imagine many German families, their lands ravaged by passing armies, sons killed in combat, quite simply had <i>enough</i> and decided to make a new life in the New World. During the beginning of the great migratory waves of Germans to America, many German names, including Vogt, were commonly misunderstood by English clerks and other recorders of public information. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This is most evident by looking at Johan Paulus Vogt's second born son, Johan Gasper<b> </b>Vogt. All of Johan Gasper's children were named <i>Faught</i>, due to a clerical error when their names were entered into the county records. In German, the "v" is pronounced like an "f" and vice-versa. So a German immigrant, standing before an English speaking magistrate in a foreign land, when prompted for his name proudly says "My name is Johan Gasper Vogt," the clerk hears "Fott" and records the name as best he could: Faught. Thus, over time, our original Vogt was commonly misspelled as Vaught<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>, Vought, Faught, Fought, Vault, Vaux, and Vaut, just to name a few.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The name, though changed from its ancient Roman roots once more, blossomed and thrived in the New World. From the old settlement in Virginia, the Vaught name spread west. Wythe County, Virginia, along the border with West Virginia, was host to Vaught's Mill Creek, which is a tributary of Reed Creek, a tributary itself of the New River on the banks of which the Vaught family moved in 1772 and lived throughout the American Revolution.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Further west and south through the Cumberland Gap is Pulaski County, Kentucky, where in Somerset, the county seat, there are numerous roads named after the Vaught family. For instance, there is a Vaught Lane, on the eastern side of the city, and almost due north of town is a road that was called Vaught Cemetery Road<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>. It is along this road that the Old Stephen Vaught Farm is located, where the remains of Johan Gasper Vaught are believed to be buried. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Just down the road from the old farm is Vaught Bridge Lane, which crosses Pitman's Creek, the stream that flowed through the hilly countryside that once belonged to the Vaught's in the mid-1800s. About three miles further west, one finds Vaught Ridge Road, running along the top of Vaught Ridge, just outside of Science Hill, Kentucky. Kentucky remains the location of the highest concentration of Vaught's in the country found to date<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>. But it is by no means the end of the expansion of the Vaught name in America.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">North, into Indiana, brings us to the next large homestead of our family, Johnson and Shelby Counties. It was here in the mid-1800s that the Vaught's moved from both Wythe County, Virginia, and Pulaski County, Kentucky. In Franklin, the county seat of Johnson County, there is a Vaught Street as well. From there, the family branched into central Florida, the other southern states, Texas and states to the west.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Today, the Vaught surname is carried by tens of thousands of people, all over the country. There are bodies of water named after Johan Paulus Vogt and his family, and there are roads in many cities from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, to Indiana that bear the name of Vaught. Hills in Kentucky and even a mountain in the Glacier National Forest is named for the Vaught family name. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">From Rome to America, for over 2,000 years our name has endured. We have witnessed the fall of Rome, the rampaging of Attila the Hun through Europe, the rise of Charlemagne, and the terror of the Vikings. Our family in Germany would have heard of the Norman conquest of England and at least one of our ancestors would later survive the Black Death. We fought our way through famine, war and disease all through the 17th Century in order hazard the perilous ocean crossing on leaky ships to breathe the sweet air of freedom on the shores of the New World. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><v:shape alt="Bark-Endeavour.jpg" id="Picture_x0020_5" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" style="height: 87pt; left: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-top: 18.5pt; mso-position-horizontal-relative: text; mso-position-horizontal: absolute; mso-position-vertical-relative: text; mso-position-vertical: absolute; mso-wrap-distance-bottom: 0; mso-wrap-distance-left: 9pt; mso-wrap-distance-right: 9pt; mso-wrap-distance-top: 0; mso-wrap-style: square; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 150.75pt; z-index: 2;" type="#_x0000_t75"> <v:imagedata o:title="Bark-Endeavour" src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\SMV\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.jpg"> <w:wrap type="square"> </w:wrap></v:imagedata></v:shape><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Our ancestors took our name and with their axes and muskets, carved a living out of primeval forest and pushed the boundaries of our fledgling nation further west. We were in this country before it was a country and we are still here today.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Vogt name has had quite a run through history....but this is only the beginning of the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> <!--[endif]--> <div id="ftn1"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Web. 27 September, 2010.</div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><i>http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patronymic<o:p></o:p></i></div></div><div id="ftn2"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> International Programs, United States Census Bureau. Web. 27 September, 2010.</div><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><i>http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html<o:p></o:p></i></div></div><div id="ftn3"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Long-leg.</div></div><div id="ftn4"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The Taylor Family Genes Project. 27 August, 2010. Web. 27 September, 2010.</div><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><i>http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~taylorydna/surname-theory.shtml<o:p></o:p></i></div></div><div id="ftn5"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> A sterling example is one just about everyone knows. Gaius Julius Caesar. Many people assume because in popular culture everyone knows this man simply as "Caesar" that this must be his last name, because "that's how we do it today". Not so. In ancient Rome, the order of the names was similar but not quite exactly as it is today. The <i>praenomen</i> (Latin for "first name" or "given name") was Gaius. His <i>gens</i> (Latin for "family", or "clan"), is Julius. So he is Gaius Julius, Gaius of the Julian clan (which is itself another way of saying Gaius, of the family of Julius---in this case at the dawn of the Julian clan there was a man named Julius and all his descendants decided to take his first name as their "last" name). Caesar is his <i>cognomen</i> (Latin for "familiar" or "known" name). Caesar is derived from the Latin word <i>caesaries</i>, which means "hair" or "head of hair". Caesar was famous for his hair in his youth and famous for not having any later in life. However, by Julius Caesar's time the <i>cognomen</i> Caesar had also become a sort of <i>gens</i>. There was a whole clan within the Julian clan that went by the name Caesar, including his own father. So one may conclude that the <i>cognomen</i> Caesar (who was bald) used was <i>really</i> named for the first Caesar who was born with a head of thick hair.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div id="ftn6"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> See: <i>http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~taylorydna/surname-theory.shtml </i>for an excellent theory on this matter written by a fellow genealogist. He was researching the Taylor family arrived at the conclusion that the Black Death was the prime motivator for people of European ancestry to adopt the French practice of surnom and apply it to everyone, not just the nobles. The idea makes a great deal of sense and I believe it to be the most logical theory I've read on the subject and will adopt it here. </div></div><div id="ftn7"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> China-Vista. The Origin of Chinese Surnames. 1996. Web. 27 September, 2010.</div><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><i>http://www.chinavista.com/culture/letters/surnames.html<o:p></o:p></i></div></div><div id="ftn8"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>There are other Vogt lines but none have been connected to ours other than in similarity of the surname, which in German speaking countries is the equivalent of Smith in America--ie, <i>very</i> popular. <o:p></o:p></div></div><div id="ftn9"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The most famous occupation-name in America is Smith. That is, a man that was a blacksmith or silversmith.</div></div><div id="ftn10"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> This place is very much like our Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia. A working historical center. For more information, see the official website (English version): <i>http://en.vogtsbauernhof.org/</i></div></div><div id="ftn11"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <span class="source"><i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Dictionary of American Family Names</span></i></span><span class="source"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Oxford</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place> Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4</span></span></div></div><div id="ftn12"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> In fact, Germany was known in Roman times as <i>Liber</i> <i>Germania</i>...Free Germany, because they were never conquered properly like other areas such as Britain or Gaul (France).</div></div><div id="ftn13"><pre style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> Vogt, Eric William, The Vogt Name...It's Origins. 21 May, 1998. Web. 27 September, 2010. <o:p></o:p></span></pre><div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><i>http://www.genforum.com/vogt/messages/66.html<o:p></o:p></i></div></div><div id="ftn14"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> That's right, Vaught is another clerical error that was never fixed! The only solution I can see is that when someone recorded Johan Paulus Vogt's name he must have seen something or spelled it so that the clerk who probably wanted to write "Faught" like Gasper, changed it to Vaught instead.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div id="ftn15"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> The Vaught Farm was recently bought by a man named Dutton who apparently decided to change the name of the road to Dutton Cemetery Road.</div></div><div id="ftn16"> <div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/SMV/My%20Documents/Hobbies/Genealogy/text%20files/Chronicles/Chronicles%20publish.docx#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Followed closely by Indiana and Virginia.</div></div></div>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-38187688648633312742011-10-26T14:21:00.000-05:002011-10-26T14:21:23.637-05:00The Vaught Chronicles: The History of an American FamilyI am pleased to announce that I have finally put the vast majority of my VAUGHT research into a book, entitled <i><b><a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-vaught-chronicles/11777069">The Vaught Chronicles: The History of an American Family</a></b></i>. <br />
<br />
I have seen other books that list the generations of descendants of Johan and Maria Vogt, giving names, dates, even little snippets about children's loves and lives. But this book is different. I explain the underlying causes of the original migration, the history that swirled around them from the 30 Years War in Europe, to Lord Dunmore's War and the Revolution here at home.<br />
<br />
This book focuses primarily on John Paul and his family, but traces his descendants through my line to my grandfather, James Albert Vaught. I have provided descendant charts for those cousins who's families were not detailed in the book, so hopefully no one is totally left out. For the most part, this book is concerned with the following people/families:<br />
<br />
Johan Paulus Vogt<br />
Johan Andreas Vogt<br />
Gasper Vaught (the root of the Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana Vaughts)<br />
<br />
I have of course a lot of information on Gasper's son George and his son George Washington, and his son George W., and his son Herbert (my great grandfather). Originally I wrote this book (which includes maps and pictures posted on this blog as well as many more) strictly for my immediate family to have and pass on to the next generation. However, when I realized how much information I had collected over the years on the first 3 generations of Vaughts---through which nearly every Vaught today can trace kinship of some kind---I figured why not spruce it up and put out there for everyone?<br />
<br />
So, though you may not be closely related to the Georges who came from Gasper (the Revolutionary War soldier), if your last name is Vaught, you'll have at least a passing interest in the majority of the book.<br />
<br />
If you are interested in purchasing the book, please <a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-vaught-chronicles/11777069">click here</a>. I have tried to keep the cost as low as possible, so it is for sale from lulu.com for $15. It is 182 pages, including pictures and maps. Just think, for the price of a death certificate or two, you can have a whole book of information!<br />
<br />
I'll be posting a snippet of the book soon....but here's the table of contents for giggles and grins.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Table of Contents</span><br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Preface</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Acknowledgments</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Author's Note</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Chapter 1: Origins of a Surname</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Chapter 2: 1680-1733: Germany to the New World</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Chapter 3: 1735-1744: Journey to the Great Valley</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Chapter 4: 1744-1772: Augusta County, Virginia</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Chapter 5: 1772-1823: Wythe County, Virginia</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Chapter 6: 1824-1960: Central and Southern Indiana</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Note on Appendices</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Appendix A: Allied Families and Their Stories</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Appendix B: Correspondence cited in this document</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Appendix C: Documents cited in their entirety</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Appendix D: Essays</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Appendix E: Vaught Descendants</span></span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"> <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Bibliography</span></span></div>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-32945753978663335192011-10-11T19:44:00.000-05:002011-10-11T19:44:08.100-05:00278 YearsTo all my Vogt/Vaught cousins out there, I wish you a Happy Arrival Day!<br />
<br />
This day in October, 278 Years ago, Johan Paulus Vogt, his wife and children, sailed into the bustling colonial port at Philadelphia, passengers on the <i>Charming Betty.</i> History records tomorrow as the day Johan Paulus and his eldest son, Johan Andreas, disembarked with the other men of age and Captain John Ball and walked to the courthouse where in the presence of the Lieutenant Governor, they swore allegiance to the British King.<br />
<br />
But it was today, a brisk autumn day in 1733, October the 11th, that the Charming Betty ghosted to a stop at one of the numerous quays bristling from Philadelphia's riverside.<br />
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Two hundred and seventy-eight years. The United States of America has only been in existence for 235 years. That's something to reflect on.<br />
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So take some time today and tomorrow, think about your ancestors, the ones who huddled along the rails of the ship, or kept themselves (somewhat) drier in the shadowy bowels of the Charming Betty all those long days and weeks it took to cross the stormy Atlantic. Think about what sacrifices they had made---giving up a homeland, friends, family, an entire life for their entire family...traveling to a land that was full of people who were increasingly fearful and hostile towards Germans (Ben Franklin was fanning the fires of intolerance through his newspaper at the time in Philadelphia, but it was a sentiment carried all up and down the English colonies---the Germans were coming in numbers large enough to scare most God-fearing Englishmen into thinking the entire continent would be speaking German in a generation).<br />
<br />
And yet their adventure was just beginning. Now they had to find winter quarters, because Philadelphia can have some pretty brutal weather for the uninitiated---especially for those who were no doubt weakened and malnourished from long, trans-Atlantic journey. Then they had to find land and get to it. Land was scarce around the safety of the colonial cities. Foreigners, like the Germans, had to go even further west---into Indian disputed territory. The dark unknown forest on the edge of civilization.<br />
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Remember them and thank them. Without their courage, sacrifice and ambition, we would not be here today.<br />
<br />
Here is our First Family and their ages, taken from the ship's manifest on October 12th, 1733.<br />
<br />
Johan Paulus Vogt, 53<br />
Maria Katerina Vogt, 46<br />
Catharina Margaret Vogt, 18<br />
Maria Catherina Vogt, 16<br />
Johan Andreas Vogt, 12<br />
Johan Gasper Vogt, 8<br />
<br />
Just think...in 12 years (2023), we can celebrate the 300th Anniversary of our family arriving on the shores of the New World. Now that's something to party about!Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-91132697377897471192011-07-02T08:24:00.000-05:002011-07-02T08:24:40.646-05:00The Signature of Johan Paulus Vogt<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Years ago, when I was in high school and just starting out on this family history journey I'm addicted to, a fellow Vaught researcher named Nancy Dodge, who lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, saw my online pleas for information at the Rootsweb message boards. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">She replied to me that she had been to the courthouse where the importations of passenger ships in the 1700s had been kept and had made photocopies of the records pertaining to our ancestors, the Vogts, from Frankfurt. Their ship was called the<em> Charming Betty, </em>captained by a man named John Ball. The document goes on further to state that they departed from London.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9K2yu3u3BCw/Tg8bXxXP-uI/AAAAAAAAAG4/PH07HTlxqE4/s1600/jpv+signature+page.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" i$="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9K2yu3u3BCw/Tg8bXxXP-uI/AAAAAAAAAG4/PH07HTlxqE4/s320/jpv+signature+page.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">On board the ship were 15 other men, heads of their respective families. Of those 15 "Palatines" (called so because they originated from the Palatinate, a region in south western Germany) only 7 could sign their own names to the official document. The rest made marks. Johan Paulus Vogt was one who signed his name, indicating a level of literacy at least enough to recognize and spell his own name.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Here is the photocopy that Nancy sent me, page 125 from a book called <em>Pennsylvania German Pioneers</em> that listed the passengers on the <em>Charming Betty</em> and replicated their signatures.<br />
<br />
<br />
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And below is our ancestors signature extracted from the others:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-txqgC7DkzV8/TgTXSHUSomI/AAAAAAAAAGw/pxW_577zBto/s1600/John+Paul+Vaught+signature.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="62" i$="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-txqgC7DkzV8/TgTXSHUSomI/AAAAAAAAAGw/pxW_577zBto/s320/John+Paul+Vaught+signature.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-71176608047541645692011-06-25T16:27:00.000-05:002011-06-25T16:27:26.495-05:00Old Newspapers and Land PatentsI have discovered a couple of very cool websites today that I just couldn't keep secret (although I'm sure many of you out there know about these or have heard of them).<br />
<br />
First off, I was curious about searching old newspapers to find more information on some ancestors, specifically the Early Virginia Vaughts. I searched in Google for "early Pennsylvania newspapers" (trying to confirm a snippet quoted to me in the past about John Paul Vogt in Ben Franklin's newspaper of 1734). What came up was a particular site entitled <a href="http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/guides/hist/onlinenewspapers.html">Historical Newspapers Online</a> from the University of Pennsylvania. This is a listing of searchable newspapers that have been completely, or partially put on the internet for your use. It has newspapers from most if not all 50 states and is simply fantastic.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything in Pennsylvania, however, I did find <a href="http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/VirginiaGazette/VGPPDetail.cfm?FileName=Louis-Ludwell.htm&First=Louis&Last=Ludwell's seedling apple trees">The Virginia Gazette</a>, courtsey of <a href="http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/">Colonial Williamsburg</a> (if you have never visited this amazing piece of living American history, I urge you to do so, it's an experience you'll never forget and may even bring you closer to your ancestors by showing you the way they worked, lived and fought!). It was fantastic! <br />
<br />
While a search for Vaught and Vogt didn't turn up much of anything, I decided to search on another line of research I'm currently working on: proof that Gasper Vaught (my direct line ancestor) and his brothers fought in Lord Dunmore's War of 1774-1775. Family lore has it that Gasper (sometimes known as Casper) was part of Captain William Love's company of frontier militia that accompanied Lord Dunmore at the Battle of Point Pleasant. There's a significant lack of information on this time period in our family history, so anything would be useful. 'Lo and behold, I found an entire article about the battle where Captain Love and his men were mentioned. It had been scanned from the original newspaper in 1775 and posted online---remarkable! I'll post some more just on this line of research later...<br />
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The next website I want to tell you about is from our US Government. I was trying to find some patents for ancestors of ours in Indiana and stumbled across the <a href="http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/default.aspx">Bureau of Land Management's record office</a>. They actually have millions of government issued land patents digitized and ready to view and save. You can also order certified copies (for only $2 each!). The system is very user friendly and easy to search. I looked under Indiana, typed in Vaught and let it fly. I was surprised to see my great-great-great-grandfather, George Washington Vaught and his brother, Andrew Jackson Vaught, listed as getting patents from the US Government in Indiana. I quickly got a digitized copy of the official certificate in .pdf form. <br />
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Once I get the actual document in the mail, I'll scan it and post it here!<br />
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Check out your ancestors on these sites and see what you can find!Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-58346631761976095342011-06-23T18:47:00.000-05:002011-06-23T18:47:45.628-05:00The Cherokee family legend: Spicey Jane Smith <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WetIGww41Hs/TgPQRp8s5SI/AAAAAAAAAFA/pVg-_PvWa7s/s1600/jov1938.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" i$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WetIGww41Hs/TgPQRp8s5SI/AAAAAAAAAFA/pVg-_PvWa7s/s320/jov1938.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Josephine Elizabeth Pinner in 1938.</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My paternal grandmother's name was Josephine Elizabeth Pinner Vaught (1916-2002). She was married to my grandfather, James Albert Vaught on the 5th of April, 1941.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Pinner family, at least my branch of it, were settlers of Florida before it became a state. In fact, the first Pinners to move into the Sunshine State arrived in the late 1820s and served in the Indian Wars of the 1830s. As the American army moved south into Florida pursuing the Seminoles, settlers followed---many of whom were soldiers who when they mustered out stayed in the new land.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William Pinner (son of Arthur Pinner from South Carolina, who was in turn the son of the first Pinner I know of, another Arthur, also of South Carolina) moved with his young family to what is now Alachua County, Florida in the late 1820s. He is listed on the Alachua County Census for 1820 but since his family didn't arrive until from South Carolina until a few years later, it is assumed he was merely laying claim to his future homestead. By 1850, he had moved the Pinners to Putnam County.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 1860 Putnam County, Florida Agricultural Census shows William Pinner owned 180 acres of land, 45 acres of which were improved and 135 were unimproved. The estimated value of his land was listed at $900 (the 1860 value). His farm implements were valued at $60 and the value of livestock was $250. In 1850, the U.S. dollar was worth 4 times what it is today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William’s youngest son Arthur (born in 1825 in South Carolina) married an interesting woman named Spisa Jane Smith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Family oral tradition has it that Spisa, also known as Spicey Jane Smith, was a full Blooded Cherokee Indian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only information I have on her is that she was born (supposedly) around 1824 on Cherokee lands in southwestern South Carolina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She (again supposedly) died sometime after 1860 (she was listed on the Putnam County 1860 Census but there is nothing after that).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Spisa/Spicey, as the story my grandmother told me goes, left her husband and family in 1838-1839 to travel the "Trail of Tears" with her people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was supposed to have had a "brood" of children she left behind...however, all my data points to the fact that her first child, Arthur A. Pinner (my grandmother’s grandfather) was born in 1843, well after the Trail of Tears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps she traveled with relatives who had a lot of children?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My grandmother used to tell my sister and I when we were children that one of her ancestors was an Indian, but she always thought it was a Seminole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The information I reported above was a combination of family legend I’ve gathered from other relatives and my grandmother (who swore up and down there was an Indian in her ancestry).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a fascinating brick wall I’ve encountered, but I’m not giving up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, the usual first place to look for Indian ancestors are the various “Rolls” the US Government produced as a sort of Indian Census.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, these rolls, I have come to understand, only cover Indians who were transferred to a reservation recognized by the United States and/or were granted land there as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since everything I have points to the fact that Spisa/Spicey---if she did go west with the Cherokee at all---came back to Florida and her husband where she began having children and remained the rest of her days.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is one “problem” I love coming back to, time after time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s something that draws me to this story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For one thing, many people (including my grandmother) have commented that my grandmother looked like she had Native American roots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it true?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’d like to find out, if nothing else than to justify my grandmother’s beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only time will tell, but when I do find something, I’ll post it here!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-17155040655866589062011-06-19T09:58:00.000-05:002011-06-19T09:58:05.622-05:00Happy Fathers Day<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #351c75; font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;">Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Like Mother’s Day, I can’t help but think about family history on Father’s Day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always take a moment to think about all the fathers in my family tree and reflect on everything they sacrificed and fought for over the centuries, to allow me and my immediate family to live the way we do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And each year I take the time to thank Mel Gibson.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I know what you’re thinking…<em>whaaaaaaat?</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mel Gibson?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does <em>he</em> have to do with Father’s Day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isn’t he some sort of a celebrity pariah now?</span></div> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-grmnnhlMFC8/Tf4IPV-U-TI/AAAAAAAAAEI/y0LMzpcAUcs/s1600/braveheart5.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="138" i$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-grmnnhlMFC8/Tf4IPV-U-TI/AAAAAAAAAEI/y0LMzpcAUcs/s200/braveheart5.gif" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swordfights! Yeah!</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, I have to thank him because he got me interested in my family history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was a junior in high school, the epic movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong>Braveheart</strong></i> was released in 1995.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went to see it with my father---what red blooded American teenager wouldn’t want to see a 3 hour swordfight?? I had never heard of William Wallace and had no idea what I was in for...but the previews I saw on TV looked cool!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That movie stirred something inside me that I never knew was there: a fascination with Scotland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t stop thinking about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the months after I saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong>Braveheart</strong></i>, I went to the library at my school and checked out every book on Scotland I could get my hands on---folk tale anthologies, histories, textbooks, it didn’t matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it was about Scotland, I was reading it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The funny part was, I had no idea why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was like I was learning stuff that I should have known but didn’t, and didn’t even know why I should have known about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard to explain.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then on a family vacation to Florida later that year, I passed a bookstore that had a display in the window of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong>Braveheart</strong></i> books---the novelization of the movie, based on the screen play written by Randall Wallace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t resist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the foreword, Mr. Wallace wrote about being on a trip of his own in Scotland, where he saw a statue of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wallace">William Wallace</a> (for those of you who don’t know---he’s the sort of the Scots version of George Washington) and got curious about whether he was related or not.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That one sentence literally changed my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked my dad about our last name---where did Vaught name come from?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He explained how he wasn’t sure, but he thought Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had done some genealogy research years back before I was born and found out some stuff from his grandparents and aunts and uncles, but then lost interest when his children were born.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When we got back home from that trip, the summer before I went off to college, I begged my father to pull out all his research and we spent a weekend pouring over everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was all handwritten, black and white photocopies, and old photographs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 15 years of research stuffed into one large manila envelope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My entire family history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I got to college, I was introduced to the joys of a T1 internet connection in the dorms at the University of Delaware.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got myself a family history computer program (Family Tree Maker) and the Internet opened up a whole new world of genealogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the end of my first semester in college, I had more than doubled the size of our family tree, confirmed about 98% of the “family legends” my dad had recorded and was thoroughly hooked on Genealogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That was 11 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I now have close to 9,700 people in my database and it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">still</i> growing because now I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really </i>focusing on my mother’s family tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know my place in the long chain of Vaughts, Tuckers, Snows, Denunes, Pinners, Wards, Cramers, Wells, Scotts and a host of other families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re reading this blog, then chances are either you fat-fingered the web address or you’re addicted to genealogy too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you’re a fellow family historian, then likely you’ve had that “Eureka!” moment too, when the dark veil of ignorance was suddenly lifted from your eyes and you saw a path to your past clear as day for the first time, ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it made you feel complete---like you belong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">loved</i> it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In 2008 my wife and I took a belated honeymoon to Scotland and England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While we were there, visiting the Isle of Skye, I had an experience that, while not exactly spiritual, came pretty close, genealogically speaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll go into details when I do a post on my connection to the Denune family, but to make a long story short, on the Isle of Skye, a local woman informed me over tea that I “had the look of the Campbells down south”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I came home and did some more research, I located the Scottish homestead I was looking for: Dunoon, Scotland, deep in the heart of the lands held by Clan Campbell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More on that later…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now that I am a father of two myself (I still can’t get used to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> idea!), the ability to pass on the knowledge that my father and I have pulled out of the dark obscurity of time and into the light of present memory to my children is something precious to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So many people in this world go through life without that anchor to the past, without knowing who they really are or where they’re from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jFMlxYH3_Qk/Tf4N4GKMnnI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/Eip3B8MzuSs/s1600/braveheart-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" i$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jFMlxYH3_Qk/Tf4N4GKMnnI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/Eip3B8MzuSs/s200/braveheart-3.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It still makes me smile (and my wife roll her eyes) to think that I owe it all to watching Mel Gibson strut around in a kilt with a big sword and speaking with a Scottish accent. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this Father’s Day, once again I’ll thank my father, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i> father and all the fathers before us for all that they did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I’ll raise a wee dram to Mel and say Thank You for starting me on the path to my history.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thanks Mel!!!</span></div>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-88546157098063299282011-06-17T21:25:00.000-05:002011-06-17T21:25:19.814-05:00The Second Germanna Settlement and Their Vaught Neighbors<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The <a href="http://www.germanna.org/">Second Germanna Colony in Virginia</a> had a large number of "escapees" from their original settlement after their indentured servitude to Governor Spotswood expired. This group of Germans who had traveled across the Atlantic together and toiled together for years, on attaining freedom, picked up stakes and moved as a block towards the Robinson River.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Coincidentally, Deep Run, the little stream that our ancestor, John Paul Vaught settled along, is a tributary of the Robinson River. Because of the location of the Hebron Lutheran Church (a few miles southwest of the Vaught homsetead and just on the eastern border of the new Germanna colonists), I knew the Vaughts and the Germanna settlers were in the same neighborhood, but the for the longest time, I hadn’t been able to figure out how they fit together.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">When I discovered that John Paul Vaught's daughter Mary Catherine had married Christopher Moyer (son of Germanna colonists George and Barbara Moyer) I knew the connection was deeper than a shared faith and a shared church.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Then I discovered in my files a map drawn in 1940 by a man named D. R. Carpenter, to whom I will be forever grateful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The map was in a small booklet, a facebook of sorts for a Germanna colony reunion in the middle part of the last century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Map was of the settlement of the Germanna “survivors” on the banks of the Robinson River in 1740.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/109206767941529470200/VaughtFamilyHistory03?authkey=Gv1sRgCPyuluWnvO2nTA#5619378238875545538"><img border="0" height="291" i$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J3KHtKxA36k/TfwKvEq8r8I/AAAAAAAAADM/-zCuVhv8R7Y/s400/VA+Map+color.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This wonderful map had on it a few roads that were still in existence, namely Highway 29 and State Road 609.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These roads were also present in the maps I had of the Vaught lands at that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found a third map online and using Photoshop, combined the three to extend the Carpenter map into my Vaught map.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I added color to outline better the Germanna and Vaught/Clements settlements, plus Deep Run and the Robinson River. </span>Presto change-o and we have a combined map of the Germanna and Vaught settlements in 1740, complete with modern roads for reference (should anyone want to visit today as I did in 1998).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Seeing all these families so close together really put things in perspective for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Vaughts weren’t just out in the wilderness---they had neighbors, lots of them, and they were all German and likely from the same (or relatively close) areas back in the Old Country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It suddenly made all the sense in the world that the Moyers and Vaughts would link their families through marriage---they were neighbors!</span>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-56493663124987044962011-06-16T09:37:00.000-05:002011-06-16T09:37:22.245-05:00The Second Vaught Homestead<div class="NormalText" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">By October of 1744, the Vaught family had split for the first time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Paul Vaught, his wife, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary Catherine, and his two sons had successfully moved from Orange County to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a distance of close to fifty <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>miles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had left behind their <a href="http://vaughtfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2010/11/first-vaught-homestead-in-virginia.html">first homestead</a> in the New World, and more importantly, their youngest daughter, Mary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary was wed to Christopher Moyer, a descendant of the <a href="http://vaughtfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2010/11/germanna.html">Germanna</a> colonists, in the summer of 1744 before the big move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She and her new husband had stayed in Orange County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Catherine Margaret, the eldest Vaught daughter and her husband Christian Clements, sold their land adjacent to the Vaught's and moved out west with their neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a common practice in the mid 1700s that when one neighbor moves, their friends and neighbors follow, sometimes having the effect of moving whole neighborhoods around the country.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Vaughts and Clements moved to an area just southeast of Massanutten Mountain, outside present day <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=harrisonburg+va&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1003&bih=399&wrapid=tlif130823474514010&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x89b492c33f077155:0x84e65b9dabd7b5f,Harrisonburg,+VA&gl=us&ei=9xP6TcixM8jo0QGPxfmoAw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ8gEwAA">Harrisonburg, Virginia</a>. <span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The tract of land that John Paul Vaught had surveyed rolled south towards the wildly looping and swift flowing North River (itself a branch of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River), between two not insignificant ridges which in a way channeled the land into a valley that ran towards the river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>The land today is farmland still, trees cleared about half a mile wide all the way down to the river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As noted in the above satellite image of the original Vaught homestead, the tree lines appeared to match the boundary lines, even more than 200 years later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that is the case with the land near Massanutten Mountain, then any visitor can drive through our ancestors lands and imagine what it looked like in 1744 quite easily. I should point out that there is no known map that I'm aware of that specifically shows the location of the Vaught homestead. I've made my best guess on the information I have. If anyone has a more exact map, I'd love to hear from you!</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fZfU7XgT1xU/TfoJTYUVd5I/AAAAAAAAAC4/_tahTzfffSI/s1600/John+Paul+Vaught+land+map+1744.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="309" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fZfU7XgT1xU/TfoJTYUVd5I/AAAAAAAAAC4/_tahTzfffSI/s400/John+Paul+Vaught+land+map+1744.jpg" t8="true" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Aerial map showing the location John Paul Vaught's land in 1744, neighboring Hans Bumgardner to the south.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Due southwest about a mile is the North River.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few miles northeast is Massanutten Mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note: Friedens Church Road and Faught's Road are in existence today and can be found on most maps.</span></b></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">This new land was important to the entire Colony of Virginia, not just our ancestors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The local Indians, namely the Cherokee, were attempting to block the movement of English colonials further west.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the 13 Colonies expanded in size and the number of inhabitants quickly outpaced the native population, resistance all along the frontier in the middle 18th century began to stiffen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>As happened in Pennsylvania in the early part of the century, the Indians came to respect and befriend the German immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where the predominantly English colonists of New England consistently broke promises and ignored treaties, the Germans of Pennsylvania kept their word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where there was war and strife between settlers and Indians in the north, there was relative peace, if not mutual respect between the Germans (both in Pennsylvania and Virginia) and the various Indian tribes.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>It is no surprise then, that sometime in 1744, the Cherokee and Shawnee resistance to further encroachment by Europeans crumbled and was sealed with a treaty on the lands of a German immigrant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That immigrant was our ancestor, John Paul Vaught.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A gathering occurred, most likely in the spring or summer of 1744 (John Paul Vaught would not likely move his family into harms way were on the frontier before a treaty was signed and we know the family was near Massanutten Mountain in October of 1744), where John Paul Vaught, Christian Clements and other Germaaun settlers---perhaps even a representative of the Governor----met with representatives of the Cherokee Nation to discuss terms for settlement of the area by the Germans.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">The Germans had the experience of the Pennsylvania immigrants to their credit, with a history of relatively peaceful relations with northern cousins of the Cherokee in Virginia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do not know the details of the gathering, what was discussed or promised or traded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All we know is that peace was brokered, the Cherokee retreated further west and south and the Cumberland Gap was opened to the white settlers for the first time in peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A great flood of migration into the Valley could now proceed unhindered by the threat of Indian raids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This critical treaty was ratified at a small spring in northwest corner of John Paul Vaught's land.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3uPN8CqRS1Q/TfoNNz6JD1I/AAAAAAAAAC8/rVIAh_Q8-iY/s1600/FRIEDENS.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3uPN8CqRS1Q/TfoNNz6JD1I/AAAAAAAAAC8/rVIAh_Q8-iY/s320/FRIEDENS.JPG" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Friedens Church</strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>Soon after the treaty gathering, John Paul Vaught constructed a simple log house next to the fateful spring that so gently gurgled into a small creek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This log house was thereafter used as a meeting house for the Germans of the area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It became a church for the two dominant religious sects of the area: The Lutherans and the Congregationalists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Friedens Kirke</i>, the Church of Peace (sometimes referred to as the Church of Friends). It still stands on our ancestral land.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ucSnJhz62e0/TfoNvgULWuI/AAAAAAAAADA/OFjTyLQBCqg/s1600/FRDNSCHR.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ucSnJhz62e0/TfoNvgULWuI/AAAAAAAAADA/OFjTyLQBCqg/s320/FRDNSCHR.JPG" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>The graveyard behind the church</strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div class="NormalText" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The church as it exists today is a brick building. Sometime after the wooden chruch was built it burned down. Our ancestors built it again and replaced it with a brick building. Today, Friedens Church is comprised of the original 1762 structure, with additional wings to the southwest and northeast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a graveyard that wraps around the back of the church, up the hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The oldest part of the graveyard is in the corner furthest from the church and has numerous German headstones,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> b</span>ut no Vaughts.</span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XoPLkxBgRLc/TfoPWc30AlI/AAAAAAAAADE/T7sS0BShcH4/s1600/VSPRINGS.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XoPLkxBgRLc/TfoPWc30AlI/AAAAAAAAADE/T7sS0BShcH4/s320/VSPRINGS.JPG" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Treaty Springs as it is today, capped in concrete.</strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">To the south, just across the parking lot from the church and within easy viewing from the front door is the spring where John Paul Vaught brokered peace with the Cherokee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, it is encapsulated in a slab of unceremonious concrete and capped, but there is still the small creek called Faught's Run that trickles along the church property and runs the length of our ancestral homeland on its lazy way towards the North River.</span></span></div></span></span></span></span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-ADw_yhlPo/TfoQ8hcXGgI/AAAAAAAAADI/q8NnBW2_D3Y/s1600/FAUGHRUN.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-ADw_yhlPo/TfoQ8hcXGgI/AAAAAAAAADI/q8NnBW2_D3Y/s320/FAUGHRUN.JPG" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Faught's Run</span></strong></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An interesting aspect of this land is a result of what happened after John Paul Vaught died in 1761. His family split again. His elder son, Andrew, along with John Paul's wife, moved to what is now Wythe County, Virginia, far along the southwest tip of the state. His younger son, Gasper, remained near Harrisonburg and eventually his name changed to Faught. That is why, if you go there today, there are so many "Faught" markers. There is Faught's Road, which I believe creates the southern boundary of John Paul's original patent. There is also a small creek that runs from the Treaty Springs area down to the North River. It is listed on the more detailed local maps as "Faught's Run" (terminology that many people would konw as a creek). Faught's Road crosses Faught's Run. It is possible that the run (creek) marked the western boundary of the Vaught's land, but I have not been able to view the original patents yet. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Unfortunately, for John Paul Vaught, he would not live to see the peace he helped create open up the Western frontier to settlers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the age of 81, John Paul Vaught died in his home 10 miles southeast of what is today Harrisonburg, Virginia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The year was 1761---the French and Indian War was already raging throughout the frontiers of the British colonies from Maine to Georgia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luckily for the Vaught's, most of the fighting was taking place well north of Virginia in Canada and New England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We don't have records on the exact reason for John Paul Vaught's death, but in the 18th Century, living to the ripe age of 81 was remarkable, if not rare for life was harsh on the frontier of the colonies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can reasonably be assumed that he died a natural death, after having lived a remarkably productive and adventure-filled life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Born in the Old World, he crossed an ocean, settled a New World, carved peace out of the wilderness and opened the path to the expansion of America.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>When John Paul and his family moved to Augusta County, it was still considered part of Orange County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he died there, the county had been carved out as Augusta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, Harrisonburg and the old plot of land that once belonged to John Paul<b> </b>are in Rockingham County, Virginia.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">John Paul's estate sale and appraisal was dated 10 September, 1761.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides his sons Andrew and Casper (Gasper Faught), only one daughter, Catherine Margret (who married Christian Clements) is mentioned in the will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been assumed in past decades that the other daughter, Mary Catherine, died prior to John Paul's will since she is not mentioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Mary Catherine did not die, but remained with her husband Christopher Moyer near the first Vaught homestead. She and her husband were long time communicants at the Hebron Lutheran Church, which will be the subject of another post.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>The tragedy of death in the family is as much a traumatic event today as it was in 1761 and for the Vaught's in the Shenandoah Valley it was no different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However the year 1761 was not without its share of joy and happiness, for John Paul's eldest son Andrew had his seventh and last son, Henry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do not know if John Paul Vaught was there to welcome his 24th grandchild into the world or not, but it is comforting to know that our ancestor did welcome at least 20 babies to his family before he died. </span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span></div></span>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-64204342864361497112011-06-10T21:29:00.000-05:002011-06-11T14:48:37.402-05:00Protecting the PastSo I was thinking today how to preserve everything I have, the papers, the old Bible, the photos. On my short list is to get some archival sleeves for my grandfather's WWII honorable discharge papers and old financial documents that belonged to my grandparents.<br />
<br />
But beyond the obvious stuff like archival sleeves, acid-free archival boxes and paper, what else can we do to protect our precious family history documents and photos?<br />
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Here's what I do. Perhaps it will help you or give you an idea. What do you do?<br />
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<ul><li>Scan Photos and Documents: I have begun the painstaking process of scanning all the old family photos. I'm in posession of three or four old-style photo albums (the ones with the sticky cardboard covered in resealable plastic film). These albums are death to photos. I have some pictures from the 1970s that look like they were processed in the 1870s. The acid in the cardboard and glues used for years in most of the old-school albums just eat at your papers and photos. If you have some stored like this, get them out now and put them in sleeved modern acid-free albums, available at most craft/hobby stores. I have scanned the pictures onto my computer and filed them under a genealogy pictures photo, grouped by family. It takes a long time, but I can sleep easier knowing that at least the digital version of the pictures will not degrade any further. Plus it has the added benefit of being able to print off new pictures for display or everyday use without damaging the original. </li>
</ul><br />
<ul><li>Transcribe photocopies: When my father and I took our family history research trip, I came across many records in courthouses such as wills, deeds and land grants pertaining to my ancestors across several states. This was before the days of portable scanners and high quality digital cameras. So I did the next best thing: I brought lots of spare change and made photocopies of the original records so that I would have a copy. Then, in my spare time, I can go back and transcribe the photocopies (see yesterday's post on the <a href="http://vaughtfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2011/06/will-of-george-son-of-andrew-vaught.html">will of George Vaught</a>) onto my computer. It takes a while because the old language can be tricky, but you'll be glad you did---I found several bits of information pertaining to the land my family owned that I had missed by "speed reading" the document to get the facts when I first copied it in the courthouse. If nothing else, transcribing photocopied documents gives you another backup.</li>
</ul><br />
<ul><li>Photographs: For objects, like my great-grandfather's Bible, given to him by his father in the late 1800s when he was born and passed down to each generation, I recommend taking detailed large digital photographs. If your camera has large or extra-large file settings (sometimes called "high detail") use the biggest you have to capture images of the book, jewelry, dress, etc., from different angles. I also like to print out a little card with information about the object, how I came to own it, who owned it before me, how old it is, etc., and place it in the photograph of the object in at least one angle so I'll have everything together. For books, try to gently open the book and hold it there long enough to take pictures of important pages, such as the birth/death/marriage records in old family Bibles. Do it right, do it detailed, and you won't have to worry about handling brittle books and jewelry in the future---just pull up the picture on your computer. Then you can store the item in an archival box, etc., to preserve it for future generations.</li>
</ul><br />
<ul><li>External Hard Drive: Once you have scanned, transcribed or organized all your photos and documents on your comptuer, <em>I highly</em> recommend getting a spare external hard drive---they are incredibly inexpensive now, compared to just a few years ago. You can get a dedicated genealogy backup drive for less than $150 that will hold hundreds of gigs of information. As one who has listened to that advice before and not acted, <em>trust me</em>...it's a good idea. I had my old computer crash and lost everything---or would have if I hadn't had everything backed up on an external drive. If you have a flood or a bad storm, tornado, or lightning strike your house or even simple burglary or a fire...the list goes on and on---you get the picture. A backup hard drive is invaluable. </li>
</ul><br />
<ul><li>CD/DVD Backups: At the very least (and before I got my back up hard drive) use CD backups. Most computers sold today have a CD-ROM drive that doubles as a CD-R (or even better a DVD-R) drive, meaning you can create CDs/DVDs of information. This is helpful, but for someone that has more than about 800 megabits worth of files and photos, you're going to need multiple CDs, cases to store them, etc. The other downside to CDs is that while they may last a long time and be impervious to magnets (the bane of floppy disks of yesteryear) the drives that run them may not last. It is a great storage media, but someday it will go the way of the floppy disk, that is to say, to the recycling plant (remember all those AOL disks you used to get in the mail? When I was in college we used those things for all sorts of things...ah but that's another post.). So a CD backup is great, but once I got my hard drive, I stopped making CDs and saved a lot of money (when you have a lot of stuff to back up, those CDs can get expensive over time!). If you have the right software, burning a DVD of genealogy files or pictures will allow you to play the images or movies on any modern DVD player (which makes a great way to share photos on family vacations to far flung relatives...ah, the rebirth of the old slide show tradition!)</li>
</ul><br />
<ul><li>File Sharing: One of the cooler things about the internet is the concept of "the cloud" that is vogue right now. Through some websites out there like <a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/">Rootsweb</a> (provided by <a href="http://ancestry.com/">Ancestry.com</a>), you can upload your family tree and notes to the internet for other researchers to see and to create a backup. Should something happen to your computer, all you need do when it is repaired/replaced, is just sign on and download your information and you're back in business. You can even go to any one of the numerous photo-sharing sites out there and upload your genealogy photos as well, then download them when you need to. Which leads me to the next part of file sharing---sharing with relatives. Make copies of everything you have, if it's convenient to put on, say, a CD or DVD, and mail it to your siblings and uncles and aunts and grandkids. They may not appreciate it now (maybe they will!) but the information will not be lost if some catastrophe happens to your house, computer or files. I recently did this at Christmas last year and it was quite gratifying to share all those old family photos (some that people hadn't seen in decades) and stories and documents, scanned onto a DVD. And lets be honest, what's the point of doing all this research if we don't share the results with our family members---after all, aren't we trying to preserve everything for future generations? I say spread the wealth---who knows, you may inspire a grandchild to take up the hobby and unknowingly "pass the torch" <em>and</em> protect your family history at the same time!</li>
</ul><br />
<ul><li>USB Flash Drives: Lastly, this inexpensive idea just occurred to me. You can get a 4Gig USB drive at Best Buy for $20 or so any more. Just plug it in, download your information and presto, another backup. I like to keep mine where I keep the physical photos and documents so I know I have a backup at hand. Can't get any simpler than that. If you need to travel or get a new computer, just plug in the flash drive (also called "Thumb Drives" and you're in business.</li>
</ul><br />
<ul><li>Location, Location, Location: Something else to consider: don't keep all your eggs in one basket. Don't store your originals in a closet along with the backups in the same place. I like to spread things out----the originals are in a footlocker in a closet. The backup hard drive is upstairs in a closet in the office. The thumbdrive stays with the originals, but my backup DVDs are stored with our DVD collection. If something happens to one part of the house (a flood, fire, or say water heater failure) at least all of my information won't be damaged or lost at once. Granted, if the whole house is destroyed I'm in trouble---but! I have copies of everything sent to my sister, father and uncle. Plus I have my tree and lots of my notes online. My motto is one redundant backup is good, two is better, three is best. </li>
</ul>So, there you have it, my methods of saving the past. I'm interested to hear what you do, or what you think works or doesn't work of what I do. Have you needed to use a backup to recover your info? What happened and how did you get through the crisis?Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-64413734580038402072011-06-09T12:47:00.000-05:002011-06-11T14:48:01.211-05:00History of the Vaught name<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's in a name? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my case, the name Vaught is not exactly the same name as my ancestors. I'm working on a family history book and here's a bit of an excerpt:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The progenitor of my family was a man named Johan Paulus Vogt, who was born in 1680 in Frankfurt, Germany.</span> <span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><em>Vogt </em></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">is identified today as German, yet it is also a common enough Swiss and Austrian name as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> In fact, i</span>t is quite prevalent throughout northern Austria, as well as southern Germany and Switzerland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>There is a German town called Vogt just east of Ravensburg near the Lake Konstance on the Swiss/German border. The <em>Heimatmuseum</em>, deep in the Black Forest is the "Folk Heritage Museum" is also called the <em>Vogtsbauernhof</em>, or "the judge's farmhouse".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span> <br />
<div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Despite being known for a German name, Vogt is actually the modern form of an ancient Roman occupational title that has similarities to a lawyer, judge, sheriff and military commander.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a nutshell, the Vogt of a particular area was the enforcer of the ruler's will and laws, a supervisor of no mean rank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">From <em>The Dictionary of American Family Names (2003):</em></span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><em><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><strong>VOGT</strong></span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">: </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">German: occupational name for a bailiff, farm manager, or other person with supervisory authority, Middle High German voget, Late Latin vocatus, from Latin advocatus, past participle of advocare ‘to call upon (to help)’. The term originally denoted someone who appeared before a court on behalf of some party not permitted to make direct representations, often an ecclesiastical body which was not supposed to have any dealings with temporal authorities.</span></em></span></span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">As the dying embers of the light that was once Rome faded into obscurity and the Dark Ages gripped Europe in a mailed fist, those who had been called upon to help or to enforce the local rulers will were known as the <em>vocatus</em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time they later were called the <em>voget</em> and finally they became the <em>Vogt</em> as the Dark Ages came to a reluctant end and the Middle Ages arrived.</span></div><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><div class="NormalText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">In the 10th Century AD, the title of Vogt was solidified as the proctor of the church in civil affairs and presided over the chief court---usually a local nobleman such as a Baron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore we can assume that to hold the office of "Vogt" for the town or village one had to be a clergyman or a local judge or both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is entirely reasonable, as in the Middle Ages the most learned (and therefore qualified to be a judge of written laws) men to be found were found in the Church.</span></div><br />
To read an excellent Medieval history of the Vogt name written by Eric William Vogt and posted on the Genforum message boards click here: <a href="http://www.genforum.com/vogt/messages/66.html">Origins of the Vogt Name </a>. Mr. Vogt's information pertains mostly to the ecclesiastical side of the name history and it's connotations within late Medieval society, but it is fascinating reading nonetheless.<br />
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Johan Paulus Vogt brought his family (his wife Maria Katerina and his children Catharina Margaret, Maria Catharina, Johan Andreas, and Johan Gasper) in 1733 to Philadelphia and shortly thereafter he is listed in official documents as John Paul Vaught. His wife and children recieved similar Anglicized names (Mary Katherine, Catherine Margaret, Mary Catherine, John Andrew and John Gasper).<br />
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So why go from Vogt to Vaught? Imagine what an Englishman would hear when a German strolls up to a clerk's desk and registers his family...in German, "v" is pronounced as an "f". So Vogt is pronounced "fought". The clerk likely spelled what he heard. This is even more evident when the next generation is listed in documents.<br />
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John Paul Vaught died in 1761 at his home near Harrisonburg, Virginia. Within a decade of his death, most of his famiy had moved south and west towards what is now known as Wythe County, Virginia. His eldest son, Andrew, carried on the family name and spread it through southwest Virigina, and <em>his</em> sons carried it into Kentucky, Indiana and other parts west. John Paul Vaught's youngest son, Gasper, stayed on the old homestead with his family. He was known as Gasper Faught (no doubt another clerk bestowed a mistaken spelling on the family name and literally spelled it like he heard it). To this day, there are numerous Faughts near Harrisonburg. A small stream runs through John Paul Vaught's old land and is still known as Faught's Run.<br />
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I don't know if <em>every</em> Faught out there is a descendant of John Gasper Faught, but it is pretty interesting to think that one man who's last name was Vogt started so many Vaught and Faught families.</span></span></span></span>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-25073439094853180992011-06-08T10:56:00.000-05:002011-06-11T14:47:18.627-05:00Will of George, son of Andrew VaughtSo I found a copy of the will of George Vaught (b. 1745- d. 1835) that I had discovered in 1998 on The Great Trek my father and I made across the country scoping out our ancestral stomping grounds. That will be the subject of another post....but for now, here's a (finally) transcribed version of the original. My wife adn I are in the process of moving to a different state on the other side of the country so my resources and time are a bit limited right now but I wanted to put <em>something</em> up!<br />
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A note about George's will---due to the spelling and education of the day, there are many, many words in the document that are odd-sounding to modern ears or outright mispelled (again by modern convention). I have transcribed a photocopy of the original document <em>exactly</em>, including all the old-time phrases and mispellings. I made a note in the middle, it is [in brackets].<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: blue;">WILL OF GEORGE VAUGHT</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">In the name of God amen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I George Vaught senior of the County of Wythe and Sate of Virginia being at this time weak in body but of sound mind and disposing memory and calling to mind the mortality of the body and knowing, that it is appointed for all men once to die do make this my last will and testament.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">First it is my desire that all my just debts and funeral expences be paid by my executors out of my estate.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">Secondly, it is my desire that my beloved wife Christianna do fully and completely possess and enjoy all my property or estates both real and personal during her natural life and after her decease the same to be disposed of in the manner hereafter directed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">And as to my sons David, John, Andrew, George, Peter, and Charles I think I already given them a sufficiency, it is my desire that each of them receive one dollar to be paid by my executors.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">Also I think that my daughter Mary hath had a sufficiency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also desire that she receive one dollar to be paid by my executors.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">As to my son Joseph I give and bequeath unto him the sum of thirty dollars to be paid [note: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to him</i> is written in above the line] by my executors.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">And it is my desire that at the decease of my wife my two sons Abraham and Jefferson to have all my land and my mill with the exception of one acre of land and a saw mill site that I have given to my two sons Charles and Joseph.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">And it is my desire that my two sons namely Abraham and Jefferson pay unto my two daughters namely, Elizabeth and Christianna each one hundred and eighty dollars. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">And it is my desire that after the decease of me and my wife whatever property is left and not disposed of the same be equally divided among all my children.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">And lastly I do hereby constitute and appoint my son Charles Vaught Executor of this my last will and Testament hereby making void all other former wills by me made Acknowledging this to be my last will and testament.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal this 13<sup>th</sup> day of March 1825.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span>his</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">Signed, Sealed, Published<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>George C Vaught </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>mark<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">and pronounced in presence of us</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">Ias. Finney</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">Roylal Hillirfrzi </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Joseph Phillippe</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><state w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span style="color: blue;">Virginia</place></state>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At a Court for <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Wythe</placename> <placetype w:st="on">County</placetype></place> at the Courthouse on Monday the 11 day of May 1835.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This the last will and testament of George Vaught Sen. Dec<sup>d</sup> was presented in Court proved by the oaths of Christopher Phillipie and Joseph Phillipie subscribing witnesses thereto and ordered to be recorded.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">And on the motion of Charles Vaught the executor named in said will who took the oath required by law.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;">And together with John Gannaway and Zachariah Mitchell his securities entered into and acknowledged a bond in the penalty of $400 conditioned as the law directs certificate is granted to him for obtaining probate of said will in due form.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue; mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Teste</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>John Mathews CC</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span></div>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-76328124187079454192010-11-21T20:27:00.000-06:002011-06-11T14:46:51.113-05:00GermannaJohn Paul Vaught and his family may have been the first of our family in Virginia, but they were not the first Germans. The Colony of Germanna was truly in the wilderness (at it's start) in 1714. By the time John Paul Vaught and his family arrived in the area in 1735, the colony had expanded with and moved more towards the area where the Vaught's settled. This leads me to believe that Germanna had a pretty large influence in our ancestors daily lives. <br />
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The following site is the official web presence of Germanna today and it is fantastic. I highly recommend checking it out---maybe not for direct information on our family, but definitely for some very relevant background information on daily life in the area of Virginia where the Vaught's lived.<br />
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<a href="http://www.germanna.org/history">History of Germanna The memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia Inc.</a><br />
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Germanna casts a long shadow over 18th Century Virginia. John Paul Vaught and his family no doubt had fairly close ties to this group starting in 1735 when they moved to the Orange County homestead. Indeed, before the family moved west to the Great Shenandoah Valley in 1744, their youngest daughter Maria Catherina married one Christohper Moyers, son of George Moyer (aka Jurgen Majer) who with his family settled the second Germanna colony in 1717.<br />
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At the bottom of the above link, there is a reference to the Hebron Lutheran Church being built (just a few miles southeast of John Paul Vaught's land) in 1740. Maria Catherina (Vaught) Moyers was a communicant at the church with her husband until 1792 (Christopher until 1790).Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-66136737794914566392010-11-21T15:51:00.000-06:002011-06-11T14:46:23.986-05:00The first Vaught homestead in VirginiaJohn Paul Vaught moved his family to Orange County, Virginia in 1735. The land is located a little west of Culpeper, Virginia, right near the boarder of Madison County. Here's a satellite image from the Bing.com search engine that I have overlayed the estimated boundary lines between John Paul Vaught and Christian Clements (who would married John Paul Vaught's eldest daughter in 1738. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9OwvMVpyig/TOmTHxV0ktI/AAAAAAAAAA0/fFyg0DhjnGg/s1600/JPVaught+1735+land+patent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" ox="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I9OwvMVpyig/TOmTHxV0ktI/AAAAAAAAAA0/fFyg0DhjnGg/s320/JPVaught+1735+land+patent.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
If you look closely, the layout of the trees still matches the old boundary lines. <br />
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This image interpreted from the classic work on the Vaught family, "There was a Gaspar in the Family" by Spurlin and Martin.<br />
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My father and I visited this area in 1998 on a family history road trip. The Hebron Lutheran Church is a few miles to the southwest just out of range of the picture. If you've visited this land, I'd love to hear your impressions---for me it was almost a spiritual experience. Knowing that we were walking on the ground, on roads (that were built on wagon trails) that our ancestors probably passed hundreds of years ago...it really was a wonderful experience. I'd love to see it in the winter!Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-37211101973436267422010-11-19T20:45:00.001-06:002010-11-19T21:00:32.430-06:00George Washington Vaught 1870 Census (Indiana)<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9OwvMVpyig/TOc5PH4PfDI/AAAAAAAAAAs/UxAxqFM_g7c/s1600/George-W-Vaught-1870-cen-sm.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 135px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541460798478449714" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_I9OwvMVpyig/TOc5PH4PfDI/AAAAAAAAAAs/UxAxqFM_g7c/s400/George-W-Vaught-1870-cen-sm.jpg" /></a><br /><div>So here's my first contribution of data to the site...a digital copy of the 1870 Census for Indiana (Clark Township, Johnson County). This is a detail of George Washington Vaught's household.<br /></div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9OwvMVpyig/TOc2u5GSz2I/AAAAAAAAAAU/Voxnq_zG7Rw/s1600/George-W-Vaught-1870-Census.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 234px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5541458045731786594" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I9OwvMVpyig/TOc2u5GSz2I/AAAAAAAAAAU/Voxnq_zG7Rw/s320/George-W-Vaught-1870-Census.jpg" /></a><br /><p>I have blurred out the other families on the picture to make it easier to find George, though if you look closely, he's really listed as "Washington Vought". What confirms that he is really George Washington Vaught are the names of his wife (Mary) and children. As an added bonus, the last name on the list for that household is one Jonathan Snow (soon to be the subject of another post) who is the father of George's wife, Mary.</p><p>Sadly, just four years later, George Washington Vaught would die at the age of 55.</p><div> </div><div> </div><div><br /> </div><div></div>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-35069580903801823562010-11-19T12:44:00.000-06:002010-11-19T13:40:56.065-06:00Johan Paulus VogtThe man, the myth, the legend. I suppose it's fair to start the story at the beginning. For many of the thousands of Vaught's across the country, the beginning of our story is one man. Johan Paulus Vogt, born sometime in or around 1680 in or near Frankfurt, Germany.<br /><br />For any of you who've been at this quest for a while, you know the story: Johan Paulus Vogt brings his family (his wife, Maria Catherina, his two sons, Johan Andreas and Johan Gasper, and his two daughters, Catherina Margaret and Maria Catherina) across the Atlantic and arrives in Philidelphia in October, 1733.<br /><br />The first solid proof that this man and his family even existed at all is the ship's passenger list from October 11, 1733, showing the family among the other 50-odd German immigrants. This passenger list, printed in numerous books and available readily on the internet, is invaluable.<br /><br />How can a simple document that just shows names on a ship be such a treasure trove? Well, this document shows us all kinds of information:<br /><ul><li>The ship's name was the <em>Charming Betty</em>, captained by John Ball. </li><li>The ship arrived from London (so we know they were at least in England for a bit)</li><li>62 passengers, split up into 15 families arrived on the <em>Charming Betty</em></li><li>The ship arrived in port on the 11th, but the passengers were officially imported on the 12th of October, 1733---from this we can deduce that the ship arrived late in the day, after the time when the captain could have arranged paperwork with the local courthouse.</li><li>The ship was likely small---most ships of the time that deposited Germans in Philadelphia carried over a hundred, some as many as three hundred passengers.</li><li>On the 12th, the heads of the families of the <em>Charming Betty</em> were taken before the local court, where in the presence of the Lieutenant Governor and other magistrates, the oath of loyalty to the Crown was administered and they became British subjects.</li><li>We know the ages of the passengers, which gives us the birth years as well (Johan Paulus 53, Maria Catherina 46, Johan Andreas 12, Johan Gasper 8, Catherina Margaret 18, Maria Catherina 16)</li><li>From the arrival date in October, we can figure at least 2 months at sea, up to possibly 4 or even 6 months. Ocean transit was fairly commonplace but highly unpredictable in the 18th century. Most voyages seemed to average a couple months at the minimum.</li></ul><p>So it's fairly easy to imagine Johan Paulus Vogt and his family staggering off the ship they had been cooped up in for weeks and weeks, finally walking on dry land and thanking God for dilvering them safely across the Atlantic. And with those first footsteps off the ship onto American soil, our family is born.</p>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7316700416927859850.post-37417064335594791682010-11-19T12:17:00.000-06:002010-11-19T12:34:43.137-06:00One Small Step...<div align="justify">So here it is, the first post to the Vaught Family History blog. Just to give you an overview of what I hope to accomplish here, this blog will be mainly a vessel for spreading the history of our family to anyone who is interested.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"> This blog isn't going to be my random thoughts, digitized. We'll be able to share information, stories, photographs, documents, and ideas on our families, the research process---especially those brick walls out there---and hopefully have some fun on the way. This blog will be many things, a place for collecting family stories and traditions, pictures, and anything else related to the Vaughts (and any family married into the Vaught line). I'm currently writing a book about our family history, so I'm sure bits and pieces of that will end up here as well.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"> In the course of my research into our family, I've encountered numerous websites and volunteers who have helped me. Through this site, I hope to "pay it forward" a bit and see if maybe I can't help others out there. You don't have to be researching one of our specific families---most of the techniques and tips family historians use today apply to just about everyone!</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"> Hopefully, in time, this site will act as a compendium of knowledge about our families, a collective work to be shared so that the memory of our ancestors will be passed on to future generations.</div><div align="justify"> </div><div align="justify"> With that, I look forward to sharing with you our common family history.</div><div align="justify"> </div>Steven M. Vaughthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630968345048495817noreply@blogger.com0