Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 Hello fellow Mumma-Moomaw researchers, family members, and friends, If you don't care to receive future updates of this type, please send me a message and I will remove you from this distribution list. Well, thanks to all of your efforts, the Mumma-Moomaw database has seen many corrections and additions since it was first made available in the fall of last year. The total number of descendants listed is well over 36,000 individuals. Needless to say it has kept me busy answering the various e-mail messages that I have received. This distribution list now numbers almost 200 people, with more being added daily. I hope that all of you have found the Web site useful in your research. I would like to remind all of you that the information is only as good and reliable as the researchers who have provided it to me. Some of it is accurate and some not is so good, so you should assume the data is in error until you have verified its accuracy yourself. At the moment, I have made all of the corrections and additions to the database that people have provided me. If you don't see the changes you submitted or expected, let me know. So what is happening in the future? Well quite a few things. First, my wife and I are taking a 5 week genealogy trip starting on May 13. We will initially travel to Dayton, Ohio, the birth place of my father. Here we will spend about two weeks, including a week long trip to Indiana, visiting Terre Haute, the birth place of my mother and eventually stopping in Fort Wayne and the Allen County Public Library. A visit with my 97 year old cousin, Jeanne Zigler, will climax this exciting portion of the trip. We then plan to renew the many relationships we formed with my Dayton, Ohio Mumma relatives. It is only my third trip to Dayton, but we thoroughly enjoy seeing all of my cousins. I also plan to do a little research at the local library and county records office. Next, we travel to Frederick and Washington Counties of Maryland. My Mumma branch lived near Sharpsburg between 1798 and 1827 before migrating to Ohio. I believe that my ggggrandfather was buried in the old Mumma cemetery in 1809 on the Mumma farm at the Antietam Battlefield, however I have not been able to prove that fact. One of my goals is to find his grave site. I am also chasing my Blessing relatives who lived in Frederick County. We plan to explore both counties with a stop in Harpers Ferry. We really enjoyed that quaint town the last time we visited. Then it is on to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for some more soaking up of nostalgia and genealogy. Of course this is the "birthplace" of the Mumma Clan in America. One of the things that I would like to do is visit the homesteads of my Mumma ancestors and this is where you can help me. I would like to know exactly where they lived so I can visit the sites using a modern road map. The following facts I know: 1) Leonard Mumma (one of the progenitors of the Mumma clan) lived in Earl Township all of his life after arriving in America. At the time of his death and the settlement of his estate, he owned about 250 acres of land. His youngest son, John Leonard Mumma, received the land. Can anyone locate for me exactly where this parcel of land is located? 2) George Anthony Mumma (1722-1786), my ancestor, also had large land holdings in Hempfield township of Lancaster County. When he died, the 371 acres of land he owned was willed to three of his sons, Henry, David, and Jacob. One of the portions that Jacob received (he was under age at the time the will was written in 1786) contained the house in which George and Barbara Mumma lived. Again, I would like to locate this piece of property were George lived. 3) And lastly, my ancestor Henry (Abt 1760-1809) also received one of the portions of land from his father, George Anthony Mumma. While I have no idea whether he ever lived on this property, I would like to visit the property. In 1798, Henry sold the land in order to satisfy his debts to the other heirs and he moved to Sharpsburg, Maryland and joined his brother, Jacob Mumma (1766-1848). Needless to say, I will be spending some time in the Mennonite Library and the Lancaster Courthouse. Unfortunately for us historians, George Anthony Mumma, a Lutheran, married a Mennonite and he took that religion as his. Therefore, no baptismal records are available for any of their children, including my ancestor, Henry. For whatever reason, Henry married Juliana Heckman in the Lutheran Church, but did not seem to baptize their children so I don't know what faith they followed. After all of this fun, we plan to move on to Annapolis for a day of exploring. Then to Washington D.C. and take in some of the historical sites. We will visit the National Archives, the DAR building, and one of the Smithsonian facilities. In the archives, I hope to view some of the original records of several ancestors. Busy, busy, busy! To conclude the trip, we will drive to Virginia Beach, Virginia and spend a few days with my sister-in-law. I imagine the pottery factory and Williamsburg will be on the agenda for places to visit. On June 16th, we fly home to California to recover from the rigors of the trip. So you may wonder what will happen to your messages or the web site during the intervening five weeks? Simple - I bought a laptop and have a second ISP which has telephone numbers in most major U.S. cities so I can logon to receive my e-mail on a daily basis, anywhere. I will be sending out daily updates about the trip to our family and friends. Should you send me e-mail during this time, the answers will be short as I will not have all of my research files with me nor the time to do a lot of extraneous message writing. Also, I don't plan to update the Internet database again until I return in June so all changes to the files are closed effective immediately. Any changes I receive will be stored in a "pending" file. I have run out of spare time and must concentrate my energies on planning and preparing for the trip. In addition to the trip to the east coast, my wife and I are also planning a trip to England and Germany in September and October. The England part of the trip is to visit my wife's cousins. Joan is a first generation American. The Germany part of the trip is to visit the birth places of my Mumma and Yeager ancestors. We plan to visit Grosskarlbach and Aachen. I have recently made the acquaintance of a German by the name of Stefan Momma, whose ancestors also come from Aachen. We had a wonderful visit with him in San Jose recently when he was in the United States presenting a class at IBM. We are trying to work out an arrangement so that he can join us during our trip to Germany. He too is interested in doing some original research in the various German archives so I am viewing my finding Stefan as God send and good omen. I would very much like to strengthen our evidence that Leonard Mumma was born in Aachen, Germany and later moved to Grosskarlbach, prior immigration to America. So, as you can see, there are exciting times ahead this summer. If I don't respond immediately to any of your inquiries, it is probably because I am simply out of control!!!!! If you would like to see a picture of me and Bob Moomaw, visit URL http://www.mumma.org/authors.html. Bob and I had the opportunity to meet for the first time in October. It is nice to be able to put a face to the voice that I have talked to for over 10 years. Likewise, you can see a picture of Stefan Momma and me when he visited a few months ago. We had a pleasurable day sightseeing in Monterey and Carmel, California which is on the rugged Pacific Ocean coast. Naturally I had to stop at a Spanish Mission which is where this picture was taken. http://www.mumma.org/stefan.html Thanks again for your help and input with the database and I hope we have an opportunity meet this summer or sometime in the future. Doug and Joan Mumma ========================================= Douglas M. Mumma 2123 Farmington Place Livermore, CA 94550 Phone: (925) 447-5164 Fax: (925) 447-8202 Internet doug@mumma.org Home Page http://www.mumma.org 3