Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000
Hello Mumma-Moomaw researchers, cousins, family 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.]
I am sorry that there has been such a long time period between Updates. The
usual excuses!! I did post a revised database to the web site in January, but
neglected to notify everyone.
I posted a new database on March 27th and I believe that I am up to date with
all the changes that people have submitted, including e-mail address changes.
If you submitted changes, revisions or additions and they do not appear in
this update or are incorrect, please let me know and I will attempt to correct
the problem.
All of the people in the database are contained within 18 Trees as follows:
Tree Information
Indiv's Desc's REF# Top Person in a particular tree & notes
------- ------ ---- ---------------------------------------
34574 22263 2 Leonard /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1694 (Original 1732 immigrant)
3657 2412 1 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1685-1690 (Original 1731 immigrant)
1191 797 U21 Samuel /Muma/ b. 10 Sep 1784 (Canadian Mumas)
1126 747 4 Peter /Mumma/ b. ABT. 1721 (Original 1748 immigrant)
670 455 U7 David /Muma/ b. ABT. 1760 (Mewmaw spelling)
* * U8 Christian /Mumma/ b. 29 Aug 1791 (Clark Co., OH)
460 291 U30 Frederick /Mumma/ b. ABT 1770
421 249 U15 Frederick /Moomau/ b. 1 Apr 1796 (Moomau family)
406 281 U28 John /Mumma/ b. 1790 (m. Catharine Ament)
281 181 E1-K1 Clais /von Kettenis/ (European Mommas and Kettenis)
187 132 U32 John Haup Moma b. Aug 1791 (Augusta, VA)
137 96 U23 Jacob /Mumma/ b. 1811 (Fulton Co. PA Mummas)
122 85 E2 Leonhard /Momma/ b. 1580 (European Mommas)
54 30 U27 John /Mumma/ (Germantown, Ohio Mumma family)
48 24 U22 John /Mumaw/ b. ABT. 1787
15 11 U25 Veryle Leroy /Mumma/ b. 1 May 1921
10 5 U31 Christian /Mumma/ (Baltimore, MD)
2 0 - A /.Hog/ b. 1 Jan 1900 (my test individual)
1 0 3 Johan Lorentz Momma, d. 1752 (original 1747 immigrant)
------- ------
43363 27736
* Note: Because of a "cousin marriage" in this tree, the analysis program
sums this branch's totals in the Leonard Mumma tree.
SURNAME FREQUENCY IN THE DATABASE
Mumma[2508], Moomaw[1848], Mumaw[968], Muma[331], Mumau[319], Momma[230],
Moomau[161], Mummau[157], Mumaugh[114], Mummah[94], Mewmaw[49], Moma[48],
Mumah[40], Mummaw[17], Mooma[6]
*********************************
Bernhard Momma update
In update #10, I talked about the discovery of a Johann Bernhard Momma who
came to America from Wickwrathberg, Germany in 1847 to fight in the Mexican-
American War. If you recall, Udo Momma discovered some papers in
Wickwrathberg that indicated Bernhard died in Vera Cruz Mexico, only a few
months after enlisting in the U.S. Army in Pittsburgh, PA.
I tried to obtain his 'service' record from the National Archives, without
success. I tried again, this time requesting his 'pension' and 'land grant'
records. This time I was successful and obtained a rather thick file. A
summary of the informations shows that:
1) His wife and children remained in Germany.
2) His wife was two months pregnant when he left for America and she give
birth to a daughter only two months before he died.
3) He died of disease in Mexico. The war was essentially over when he died and
this again demonstrates that many, many soldiers die of diseases and
infections, not bullets.
4) His wife applied for pension and a land grant, several years after he died.
She was probably not aware of her rights to his pension immediately after he
died.
5) Before she received any money, she died and then new papers are filed for
the one child who is under age and entitled to the father's pension. This was
the child he never saw.
Again, it was an interesting drama to uncover and follow. It would be fun to
discover some of his descendants and present them with these records.
Unfortunately, because of strict German privacy laws, it is much more
difficult to track down living people in Germany.
*********************************
The MUMMA DNA Surname Project
What I would like to talk to you about now is a new and exciting project to
identify whether or not the immigrants Jacob, Leonard and Peter were brothers,
cousins or not related at all. And if they weren't related, to which of these
groups do the descendants of Christian Mumma (1791-1866) or Jacob Muma(1755-?)
"Canadian Mummas" or Frederick Moomau (1796-1845) belong? We also have the
nagging question as to whether the American Mumma clan descend from the German
Momma families. The list of unanswered questions about the "unidentified"
family trees grows almost daily. Knowing these answers would help focus our
research with these "unconnected" families and our European investigations.
Well now there exists a proven technique that will answer these questions!!
One of the more recent celebrated cases was the question as to whether or not
President Thomas Jefferson fathered a slave child by Sally Hemings. Through
"Y" chromosome testing, they were clearly able to show that Sally did have a
child fathered by a Jefferson, but these tests did not allow them to determine
which Jefferson. Likewise another study was reported on by Bryan Sykes of
England who sampled a large group of men with the Sykes surname. In his study
he tested 61 men with the Sykes surname and discovered that there was a clear
DNA pattern in the Y-chromosome haplotype distribution that was unique to the
Sykes surname. These are all powerful results that would be very useful to
MUMMA research. I have posted more detailed information and a program
proposal that can be found at http://www.mumma.org/DNA.htm complete with
hyperlinks to other resources. I invite you to visit that page and some of the
links.
So where do we go from here to study the MUMMA surname and spelling variations
to determine whether or not the various family groups are related? We only
need two things. One is a group of men with the MUMMA (or alternate
spellings) surname who are willing to provide a DNA sample obtained by a
simple swabbing of the inside of a person's cheek. You perform the test
yourself. While it would be nice to include women in the test sample, only men
carry the Y-chromosome that is used in this identification process. The
second thing we need is a way to fund the project. While it might be possible
to find a university who would be willing to underwrite the testing costs, it
would probably extend the time before which we would obtain results to beyond
a year or longer. While I will continue to pursue that avenue, I would really
like to obtain some results on a much quicker time schedule, like in a few
months!! Unfortunately, Y-chromosome testing, which is used in paternity
cases, is not inexpensive and costs between $200-250 per sample, depending on
the number of people who are tested at one time. I hope that some of you also
feel that this surname information is of sufficient importance that you would
be willing to participate in such a test program and fund your own sample
analysis.
In order to obtain a feeling for your interest, positive or negative, I would
appreciate feedback from you indicating your willingness to participate and
your possible ability to underwrite your analysis cost or maybe some smaller
cost number. Just send me a message at DNA@mumma.org and express yourself. I
am so excited about the prospect of the test results that I wish I could
underwrite the entire project. Some of you have expressed appreciation for
all of the hard work that I have put into the Mumma Web Site. Well here is a
way you can repay that appreciation. As I mentioned, only men can participate
and I hope we can also get participants from the "unidentified" groups such as
the Canadian Mumas, the Moomeys, Mummeys, Mommas, and several of the other
groups who don't link back directly to Jacob, Leonard or Peter.
Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you about you interest in the DNA
Y-chromosome test program. E-mail me at DNA@mumma.org
Doug
P.S. I expect to issue another update within a few weeks to update you on the
feedback response to the DNA testing program as well as present some rather
startling news. From my recent investigations, it appears that George Anthony
Mumma(1722-1786) had another wife and child, prior to his marriage to Barbara
Weber. As soon as some confirming documentation arrives from Lancaster, I
will present to you the evidence for his first wife.
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