For a while now, I have not been satisfied with the documentation, or lack there of, connecting my ancestress Mary "Polly" Eagle Ribelin to her parents. The assertion many online trees and published genealogies have made is that she was the daughter of George Eagle and a Mary Magdeline Susannah Huldermar/Haldeman/Holdeman. I had several problems with this assertion, the primary one being that I could find no definitive documentation connecting Mary to George, who died in newton County, Missouri in 1864 (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=EA&GSpartial=1&GSbyrel=all&GSst=26&GScntry=4&GSsr=1361&GRid=6429358&). Further, I've taken issue with the assertion that the "Mary Magdeline" that George is shown to be married to after 1850 being the same "Susanah Haldeman" he married in 1802. Beyond that, I also took issue with George being labeled the son of another George Eagle, as there similarly appeared to be a complete lack of documentation proving this. So I took it upon myself to see if I could prove or disprove any of these assertions, or at least add possible alternate scenarios.
It appears the definitive resource for Eagle family genealogy has been "Pennsylvania Genealogies; Chiefly Scotch-Irish and German.", first published in 1886 by renowned Pennsylvania historian William Henry Egle. (https://archive.org/details/cu31924028856900) Mr. Egle has a Marcus Egle as the progenitor of the Eagle family of Pennsylvania. According to Egle's book, Marcus was from Zurich, Switzerland and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he had four children that have been identified: John, Caspar, Adam, and Susannah. He begins to give outlines of each family to the best of his knowledge; unfortunately, he does not cite many primary sources. He states that Marcus's son Adam had three sons: John, George, and Phillip, who each later immigrated to Rowan County, North Carolina. I do not take issue with this assertion, as all three men appear in the 1800 Census of Rowan County and in probate records there. He does not detail John's progeny beyond stating he had sons named David and John.
Egle goes into great detail outlining Phillip's descendants, and he lists three children for George: daughters Mary and Margaret, and George who married the woman he lists as "Mary Haldeman". Since he did not list his sources, it is difficult to ascertain how he came up with this lineage. It is likely fair to assume that the three early Rowan County Egle/Eagle's were brothers, and though I have not located specific proof of this, I will tentatively agree with the conclusion unless proven otherwise. Also, none of these three probable-brothers left wills behind naming their heirs, though there are estate files in their name. After looking through these estate files and a couple of other basic records, the first undocumented conclusion of this book I would like to dissect is that George, son of Adam, was the father of George who d. in Newton County, Missouri.
After some simple searching, I have concluded that this George who d. in Missouri is really the son of John, rather than George. George's headstone, which is located in McDonald County, Missouri, gives his date of birth as 25 Dec 1781. This is consistent with the 1850 Census which has him born about 1783, and the 1860 Census, which has him born about 1782. This would put him in the 17-19 age range in 1800. As it turns out, only one of the three brothers has a male in his household in the 16-25 age range: John Egle. Further, the bondsman for George's marriage to Susanah Haldeman was: John Egle. John died in 1806, and a George Egle is named the administrator of his estate. I can't find definitively whether this would be George b. 1781 or John's brother George, but it can assumed with relative certainty that it was his son, George b. 1781, based on an 1813 deed.
On January 18, 1813, George Eagle, Samuel Albright and his wife, Elisabeth, Catharine Eagle [Note: This is likely the Caty Eagle who m. Jacob Mowrie on 6 Apr 1814 in Rowan County], John Smith and wife, Eave, George House and wife, Margaret, all of Rowan County and heirs of John Eagle, dec'd, to Michael Isehower land in Cabarrus County (land on Ruben's Branch of English Buffalo Creek). This proves that John had a son named George, and combined with the above information, it appears clear that this son was George b. 1781. John's brother George, long assumed to be the father of George b. 1781, did also have a son named George. On 28 Feb 1818, George Eagle Sr. gifted 100 acres on Dutch Buffalo Creek in Rowan County to his son George Eagle Jr. This was certainly George who was born about 1799; he was most likely being gifted the land for coming of age.
By 1818 when that deed occurred, George b. 1781 was likely already in Cabarrus County where he is found in the 1820 Census. I base this assertion on the fact that only one George Eagle appears on the 1815 Rowan County tax list, and based on his proximity to Phillip, it is almost certainly George Eagle Sr. [http://www.ncgenealogy.org/publications/ncgs-journal/ncgs-journal-2000-2004/ncgs-journal-2004/201-ncgs-journal-vol-xxx-no-3-august-2004-1/file]
Now that I've established George b. 1781's parentage, I want to look at what we know about him and work toward attempting to connecting him to my Mary. At the very least, I would like to connect her to other Eagles who in turn could be connected to George, or else rule her out as a potential daughter for two other Eagle men who could have been her father. So I am going to split the remainder of this narrative into six sections:
I. What do we know about George Eagle, b. 1781?
II. Could anyone besides George b. 1781 be Mary Eagle Ribelin's father?
III. How else can Mary be directly or indirectly tied to George b. 1781?
IV. Could anyone besides George b. 1781 be Solomon Eagle's father?
V. DNA Evidence
VI. Are Susannah and Mary Magdeline the same woman?
I. What do we know about George Eagle, b. 1781?
George appears in the 1810 Census in Rowan County; after that, he is found in Cabarrus County in 1820-1850, and finally in Newton County, Missouri in 1860. He is living with the family of his son, Moses, in 1850 and 1860, along with his wife, who is listed as Mary M. in 1850 and Magdeline in 1860. Whether this is the same woman as the Susanah Holdeman he married in 1802 has yet to be determined with absolute certainty.
His headstone in McDonald County, MO gives his year of birth as 1781, while his 1850 and 1860 Census records give his approximate year as 1783 and 1782, respectively. His known children are: Leah (m. John Peck), Elizabeth (m. Isaac Beaver), John b. 1813, George Adam, Sophia, and Moses. All of these children with the exceptions of Elizabeth and John b. 1813 migrated to Newton County, Missouri along with George and his wife. Elizabeth's son, Daniel Beaver, made the trip to Missouri with his grandparents and relatives, and Elizabeth fits with George's Census records and came to Cabarrus County with him from Rowan. John also fits George's Census records, moved to Cabarrus with him, and actually took up the same profession as George, which was gunsmithing.
[Note: No marriage record has been found for George's daughter Sophia, who married Jesse Hodge. But her maiden name can be proven by her son George's and son Daniel's death certificates in Missouri, which give their mother's name as Sophia Eagle. Her daughter Agnes's 1949 Texas death certificate also gives her mother's name as Sophia Eagle. She is buried in the same cemetery as her parents and her siblings George Adam and Leah.]
George and John were both highly respected gunsmiths in their geographic area. Some of their rifles are still surviving today and fetch thousands of dollars. One of John's rifles is on display at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Salem, NC. [http://www.mesda.org/collections/silver_sprite/mesda_longrifle.html]
George's rifles are equally revered and collectible. Photographs of one of his rifles can be found here: http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2011/05/2011-33rd-tennessee-kentucky-rifle-show_23.html.
This shared profession, along with John's fit with George's census records and geographic locale make him an almost certain son of George. Additionally, John doesn't actually fit in the household of any other Eagle man in the 1830 Census, as well be discussed later, which further solidifies the near certainty that he is indeed George's son.
The other two children typically attached to George are Solomon Eagle and Mary "Polly" Eagle who married Isaac Ribelin. As George did not leave behind any estate records that we know of, putting together his family has been done mostly by logical deduction and circumstantial evidence, or at least that's how it appears to me. Several published accounts of the Eagle family over several decades have listed George with these eight children, and for the most part, the family fits together pretty straight forwardly. They all match with George's census records, and as shown above, most can be attached to him by geographic movements and other means. However, all of these same published accounts list George as the son of George Sr., and as I have proven above, he was the son George Sr.'s brother John. So if they can be wrong about that, they could be wrong about his children as well.
Fitting Solomon and Mary into George's family isn't as simple as fitting in the other children. For one thing, the six more or less confirmed children all lived in Cabarrus County with George at one time or another. However, Solomon and Mary were firmly rooted in neighboring Rowan County for their adult lives from their marriages on. It would be easier in some ways to conclude they were the children of either George Sr. or Phillip (being the only two Eagles in NC old enough besides John who had his own daughter Mary to be the father of Mary), or that Solomon (born in 1811) could be the son of one of George's or Phillip's eldest sons. But they have been attached to George b. 1781, and therefore I have become determined to show with as much conviction as possible that they do indeed belong to George b. 1781's family. So I have set out to do so, and I will share my evidence and conclusions below.
II. Could anyone besides George b. 1781 be Mary Eagle Ribelin's father?
Mary "Polly" Eagle who married Isaac Ribelin was born about 1807, according to her headstone, which states she died in 1878 at age 71. In order to rule out other Eagles as Mary's father, we can start with looking at the four other "elder" Eagles found in Rowan and Cabarrus counties in 1850 besides George b. 1781: Peter (1794), John (1790), George (1799), and John (1794). Obviously all four of these men are too young to have been Mary's father, as even the eldest of them, John b. 1790, would have been only 17 at her birth and neither he nor John b. 1794, nor Peter have a female over age 10 in their 1820 households.
George b. 1781 is the only one of the elder Eagles living in 1850 who was really old enough to be Mary's father, but that doesn't mean one of the other eldest Eagles could not have been. The previously mentioned deed listing John Eagle's heirs includes a daughter named Mary who was married to Samuel Albright, which means John is not this Mary's father. In the 1810 Census, George b. 1781 has 3 daughters under age 10, while George Sr. has one and Phillip has two. This leaves open the possibility that George Sr. or Phillip could be Mary's father.
In the 1820 Census, George's under age 10 female from the 1810 Census is now in the 16-26 age range, making her too old to be Mary. It is unclear who this female is; she may be the Jane Eagle who married Archibald Gibson in Rowan County on 7 Oct 1828, as it does not appear this Jane has been connected to any particular family, but as she not found in other records we can not ascertain her age so we can really only guess as to where she belongs. Phillip's two daughters from the 1810 Census appear in 1820 in the 10-16 age range, leaving open the possibility that one of them could be Mary. It is certain that one of them is Esther Eagle who married Thomas Franklin Bain on 14 Mar 1829. Esther and her husband followed the majority of Phillip's children after his death to Maury County, Tennessee; John b. 1794 and James who later moved to Mecklenburg County.
According to William Henry Egle's "Pennsylvania Genealogies", this second daughter would be an Elizabeth Eagle who married a Simeon Lutz and had at least two children by him. I have not found any record of a daughter Elizabeth, nor of her husband Simeon Lutz or their supposed children, Henry and Sophia. Egle's genealogy has been proven to be imperfect, but his work on Phillip Eagle's descendants is mostly solid and verifiable, so I am inclined to believe Egle that the second 10-16 year old female in Phillip's 1820 household is indeed Elizabeth. However, as Elizabeth's existence has not yet been proven with documentation, it leaves open the small possibility that Mary could be Phillip's daughter. But since by 1840, all of Phillip's other descendants were either in Maury County, Tennessee or else Cabarrus (John b. 1794) or Meckelnburg (James) counties, it seems unlikely that Mary would have stayed behind and not gone to be nearer any of her immediate family if she were indeed a part of Phillip's brood.
Having reduced the probability that anyone but George b. 1781 could be Mary's father to almost none, we must now ask ourselves:
III. How else can Mary be directly or indirectly tied to George b. 1781?
By now, we've covered the facts that Mary cannot be tied to George b. 1781 with documentation or even really with geographic proximity, but she does fit into his family's census records. So how else can we show Mary to be connected with George b. 1781? For me, it starts with her marriage.
Mary married Isaac Ribelin on 10 Aug 1822 in Rowan County. The fact that she married Isaac in Rowan County has always struck me as strange since by 1820, George b. 1781 was in Cabarrus County and she would seemingly be one of the 10-16 year old females in his 1820 household there. But it would certainly not be unheard of for someone to get married in a county adjacent to where they are living, especially when they were born in that county and lived their early life there. The bondsman for this marriage is an important clue; the bondsman's name was George Vogler. Like Eagle, Vogler was a celebrated gunsmith. He moved to Rowan County in about 1815, having apprenticed under his uncle, Christopher Vogler, in Salem, NC. Information on Vogler and a picture of one of his guns can be found here: http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2011/05/2011-33rd-tennessee-kentucky-rifle-show_23.html
It is likely that all of the gunsmiths in early Rowan county were well-acquainted with one another, if not friends. This assertion is even further supported by the fact that yet another celebrated gunsmith of Rowan County was none other than Mary's husband, Isaac Ribelin. The same blog I have linked to multiple times has information on Isaac's work and a picture of one of his rifles.
This common link between George Eagle, George Vogler, and Isaac Ribelin is an important one. I think it is possible, if not probable, that Isaac apprenticed under George Eagle, which is where he probably learned the gunsmith trade. This is purely conjecture, but George b. 1781's 1810 household includes an unidentified male under the of 10; is it not possible that this could be Isaac Ribelin, b. 1800, appearing in the household as George's apprentice? It's a possibility, but not something that I could prove. Regardless, the fact that George b. 1781 was a gunsmith, and that Mary married another gunsmith while a 3rd gunsmith acted as bondsman for said marriage points to the likelihood that Mary was indeed George's daughter.
Mary can also be succinctly connected to Solomon Eagle, who as previously mentioned is in a similar boat to Mary in that he cannot be attached to George b. 1781 by documentation or geographic proximity, though he fits in George's early census records and has been attached to George in many published genealogies. Mary's husband, Isaac Ribelin, acted as the bondsman for Solomon's 18 Dec 1834 marriage to Agnes N. Hodge in Rowan County. Once again, it is curious that Solomon married in Rowan County when he would have been living in Cabarrus, but it is not unheard of. Solomon appears to have lived the remainder of his adult life in Rowan County, as did Mary.
It would be nice if Solomon were also a gunsmith, which would tie him even more firmly to George b. 1781, but in the 1850 Census he is listed as a cooper, who was a person who made and repaired casks and barrels. However, in that census he is living next door to another gunsmith: Jesse Ribelin, the eldest son of Mary and Isaac, who clearly picked up the trade from his father. Further, Solomon is buried mere feet from Mary in Saint Matthew's Lutheran Church Cemetery. According to their records, Solomon is buried in Row 3, Plot 15, while Mary is buried in Row 4, plot 22 which means they are laid to rest not just in the same cemetery but within a few yards of one another. [http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/rowan/cemeteries/stmatthw.txt]
These facts appear to tie Mary and Solomon together as siblings, which then leads us to out next quandary:
IV. Could anyone besides George b. 1781 be Solomon Eagle's father?
According to his headstone, Solomon Eagle was born 14 Jun 1811. This would mean he would be enumerated as an under 10 male in the 1820 Census, and as a 15-20 year old male in the 1830 Census. Fortunately, this makes finding him fairly straightforward. In the 1820 Census, Phillip's son Joseph, who is living in Cabarrus County, has 3 sons under age 10, while Peter, John b. 1790, and John b. 1794 each have one, and our George b. 1781 has 3. George Sr. and Phillip have no males in their households under the age of 16.
The eldest sons of Peter, John b. 1790, and John b. 1794 have not been identified the majority of Eagle genealogies as best as I have ascertained. In fact, after having identified each of these sons myself, I found that little can be found about them online, and when I did find them online, no one had bothered to attach them to their fathers. So I believe I have identified the sons of these three men who were born between 1810 and 1820. None of these men left wills, so obviously these connections are circumstantial, but I think my cases for each of them is as strong as one could hope for.
1. Peter's son under age 10 in the 1820 Census is almost certainly David Eagle, who was born about 1816 and can be found in Rowan County census records in 1850 and 1860. David was a little difficult to place because while he was living next door to Peter in the 1840 Census, in 1850 he was living next door to Peter's brother John b. 1790 who also would have had a son David's age. It wasn't until I had identified John's son who was David's age that I felt sure David was Peter's son. Peter and David living next door to one another in 1840 in combination with the evidence regarding who John b. 1790's son is is good enough for me.
2. John b. 1790's son was almost certainly John A. Eagle. John A. Eagle married Barbary A. Lorets in Rowan County on 4 Feb 1845. In 1850, they are found living Ouachita County, Arkansas. John's Census records in 1850 and 1860 put his age at about 1820, so he would be the "under 10" in John b. 1790's 1820 household, the 5-10 year old in his 1830 household, and the 20-30 year old in his 1840 household. The reason I have connected John A. to John b. 1790 is because by 1860 another of John b. 1790's sons can be found in Ouachita County, Arkansas: his next eldest, Daniel M. Eagle, who was born about 1833. He can be found enumerated as "D M Eagle" in Ouachita County in 1860, while in 1850 he was still living in his father's home.
This circumstantial evidence is strong enough for me to tie John A. to John. Further, John b. 1790's 1840 Census proves that his "under 10" son from 1820 was still living with him as a 20-30 year old male. The above-mentioned David already had his own household by 1840 when he was living next to Peter, while Peter's son who was under 10 in 1820 is not still residing with him.
3. The son of John b. 1794, who was a son of Phillip and moved to Cabarrus County between 1830 and 1840, was certainly Daniel Eagle. Though his census records have him being born anywhere from 1815 to 1817, Daniel's enlistment records when he joined the 4th North Carolina Senior Reserves in the Civil War gives his age as 44 years, 10 months, and 17 days on the day he enlisted, 29 Jun 1864. This would make his date of birth 12 Aug 1819. The record gave his place of birth as Rowan County. Daniel is the only Eagle male born between 1810 and 1820 who is found in Cabarrus County census records with the exceptions of George b. 1781's sons John b. 1813 and George Adam. Further, like the above John b. 1790, John b. 1794 still has a 20-30 year old son in the 1840 Census in Cabarrus County, and Daniel did not have his own household that year which points to the strong likelihood that Daniel was the 20-30 year old male in John b. 1794's household.
For the identifications of Joseph Eagle's 3 sons under the age of 10 in the 1820 Census, we can refer back to Egle's "Pennsylvania Genealogies". Joseph's is another of the lines that appears to have been thoroughly researched, and can likely be trusted. Egle attributes 3 sons who were born between 1810 and 1820 to Joseph: James, born 24 Mar 1813, and Phillip and Henry, twins born in 1817. James and Henry can be firmly tied to Joseph, and while Phillip died young the fact that he married a sister of James's wife raises the probability that he was indeed Joseph's son rather than a son of one of Joseph's brothers.
It should be noted that Joseph's 1820 household also includes a 10-16 year old male who has not been identified. A marriage record for Joseph and his wife, Rosena Furr, has not been found. Some online sources give their date of marriage as 11 Apr 1811 in Cabarrus County, but this marriage is not found in Rowan County's marriage register. [http://www.cabarruscounty.us/government/departments/library/Local%20History/1793-1868_Marriage_Bonds.pdf] Rosena was previously married to George Klutts on 13 May 1807 in Cabarrus. The 10-16 year old male could have been a product of her first marriage, or else could have been on of Joseph's brothers. Some genealogies (http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/c/p/Linda-Spires-Mcpherson/PDFGENE22.pdf) claim the family also had a son named George b. about 1811, but no documentation of this George has been discovered.
Further, most Eagle genealogies attribute the aforementioned John Eagle b. 1790 as a son of Phillip. This appears to have been done primarily because this John married Sophia Furr, a sister of the above mentioned Rosena Furr, both daughters of Henry Furr. Henry Furr even names his son-in-law John Eagle the executor of his estate. And Joseph Eagle acted as the bondsman for John's marriage to Sophia. People appear to have assumed this was a case of a pair of brothers marrying a pair of sisters, which was not uncommon in these days. However, I think it is more likely that John and Joseph were first cousins. First of all, John who married Sophia, while he married in Cabarrus County, appears to have resided in Rowan County all of his life. He is always found to be very near Peter and George Jr., and I believe the three of them are the three sons of George Sr. who are found in his 1800 and 1810 households. I believe John b. 1794 is the son of Phillip because he migrated to Cabarrus from Rowan County along with his brother, Joseph.
It is certainly possible that I have these two John's mixed up at John b. 1790 of Rowan is the son of Phillip and John b. 1794 of Cabarrus is the son of George Sr., but the remarkably close proximity in which John of Rowan lived with Peter and George Jr. leads me to strongly believe that he is their brother, rather than their 1st cousin.
Now that we have seemingly identified all of the under age 10 male Eagles from the 1820 Census, we can take it a step further. As previously stated, in 1830 Solomon Eagle would have been in the 15-20 age range, and as stated even earlier, John b. 1813 would have also been in the 15-20 age range. As it turns out, there is only two Eagle households in 1830 with males between the ages of 15 and 20: George b. 1781 and Joseph, son of Phillip. As Joseph's 15-20 year old son has already been firmly identified as James Eagle, born 24 Mar 1813, that leads us to a logical conclusion that the two 15-20 year old males in George b. 1781's 1830 household must be Solomon b. 1811 and John b. 1813.
Again, all of this is circumstantial evidence, but it would appear that since Solomon and Mary are pretty firmly connected together, and they cannot fit into any other Eagle household but George b. 1781's, they logically must be the son and daughter of George Eagle b. 1781. There is also one more way we can confirm that Mary was indeed the daughter of George b. 1781, and that is by look at:
V. DNA Evidence
I have collected a DNA sample from my grand uncle, Dr. Robert Ronald "Ronnie" Moose, M.D. He is the son of Robert Royer Moose, son of Adolphus Franklin Moose, son of Sarah Jane Ribelin, daughter of Isaac Ribelin and Mary Eagle. This would make Isaac and Mary his great great grandparents. The Ancestry DNA test picks up familial relationships very well within 5 generations, and relatively well up to 8 generations. As Ronnie's relationship to Isaac and Mary is within 5 generations, one can assume that his Eagle connections will be quite accurate.
Ronnie had two matches that came back at 96% confidence, predicting a relationship of 4th-6th cousins.
The first was to a user name stoweanne. She appears to be a 6th cousin of Ronnie, as she descends directly from Rachel Eagle McNeely, daughter of Phillip Eagle, son of Adam Eagle. Ronnie's second match was even more promising, as it showed him to be a 4th cousin once removed of user brentley_clark, a direct descendant of Sophia Eagle who married Jesse Hodge, a daughter of George Eagle b. 1781. This match further solidifies my conviction that despite the lack of strong documentation proving the relationship, Mary "Polly" Eagle, wife of Isaac Ribelin, is indeed a daughter of George Eagle b. 1781.
Ronnie's DNA evidence also lent some assistance to another mysterious question, one regarding George b. 1781's wife, which is:
VI. Are Susannah and Mary Magdeline the same woman?
On 18 Oct 1802, George Eagle is shown to have married a Susannah Haldeman, a surname of Mennonite origin which has been found to be spelled in a number of variations including Holdeman, Halterman, and other similar spellings. Pastor Storch's records list her as "Sus." However, by 1850 George's wife's name in the census is Mary M., and in 1860 she is listed as "Magdeline". Her headstone lists her as "Mary M. Eagle". Most Eagle researchers label her as "Mary Magdelin Susannah", but I am suspicious of this, as it seems more likely that Susannah was a first wife who passed away and then George remarried to a Mary Magdeline.
The evidence to the contrary of that sentiment is, however, quite strong. First of all, Cabarrus County kept very accurate marriage records, and there is no record of George remarrying. Second of all, in 1820 George is found two households from a Paul Nussman in Rowan County. Thirty years later in neighboring Cabarrus County, George is found living next door to Paul Nussman. And who was Paul Nussman's wife? Why, none other than a Hannah Haldeman, whom he married in Cabarrus County on 20 Aug 1810. It seems unlikely that George would live in such close proximity to Paul Nussman and his wife Hannah for so long if it were George's former wife who was a Haldeman and not his current one. This lends credence to the assertion that Susannah and Mary Magdeline were one in the same.
Further, both Mary and Hannah in the 1850 Census claim to have been born in Pennsylvania. This is where the Haldeman family originated, as did most early Mennonites.
Marlene DiGiovanni, a longtime genealogical researcher of the Eagle family and descendant of Leah Eagle, daughter of George b. 1781, who married Isaac Beaver, asserts that it was not uncommon for a person's given Christian name and their personal name among their family members to be different. She believes strongly that Mary Magdeline and Susannah are one in the same, and I am inclined to agree with her despite the lack of documentation proving this assertion.
Three other Haldemans are found in Cabarrus County records in addition to Hannah and Mary/Susannah. An Elizabeth Haldeman married a William Groner or Croner in Cabarrus County on 19 Jan 1795. A Christian Halteman/Halterman married a Mary Schmidt/Smith on 1 Sep 1800 in Cabarrus County, and is found in Cabarrus County census records in 1810, 1820, and 1830. His eldest and only identified son was Abraham Halterman who appears in several Cabarrus County records. It is interesting to note as well that Pastor Storch's records state that he buried an Abraham Haldeman in 1798.
A researcher named Donna Basinger who has thoroughly researched many Haldeman Mennonite families believes that this Abraham was almost certainly the father of this clump of Haldemans in Cabarrus and Rowan counties. She believes this Abraham who was buried by Pastor Storch to be an Abraham Krey Haldeman of Pennsylvania, brother of John Krey Haldeman and Nicholas Haldeman, the latter of which apparently also migrated to North Carolina from Pennsylvania. She writes:
"
The brother of my possible ancestor John Krey Haldeman was Abraham Krey Haldeman. He was supposed to have moved out of Pennsylvania, probably after the Rev. War. His brother Nicholas Haldeman supposedly went to North Carolina as well. I think this is Abraham, father of Christian. This Abraham’s father was Christian and Mennonite naming patterns means you name the first son after his grandfather. So Abraham named his son Christian after his father. Christian then named a son Abraham after his father."
She also sent a biographical sketch of an Eli Eddlemann from "History of Alexander, Union, and Pulaski Counties, Illinois", edited by William Henry Perrin. He married a daughter of the aforementioned younger Abraham Halterman, son of Christian of Rowan County, likely son of the elder Abraham.
"He was married in 1852 in this county to Miss Mary L. Halterman. A native of N. Carolina born September 24, 1827 and came to Union Co with her parents in 1850. ...Mrs Eddleman’s father was Abraham Halterman, a native of N. Carolina and born in 1800. He was a farmer and carpenter and in 1852 built the County Court house at Concord N.C. and in 1850 came to Union Co. ILL. He was a large landholder owning some 2500 acres. He died in 1853 His father was Christian Halterman a native of Pennsylvania but an early emigrant to North Carolina."
This sketch further points to the probability that Christian was a brother of Mary/Susannah, Hannah, and probably Elizabeth as well. The only other way I know of to try and learn more about the family of Mary/Susannah, or at least confirm assumptions, is by looking at DNA evidence. Once again, I will look at Ronnie Moose's DNA results to see if they lend credence to the assertion that Mary Eagle Ribelin's mother was a Haldeman/Halterman of Pennsylvanian Mennonite descent.
I have decided to search through Ronnie's results using six different variations of the name: Haldeman, Halderman, Holdeman, Holderman, Halterman, and Holterman. Each search yielded matches of varying degrees of confidence with the exception of Holterman, which yielded no results. I will not be looking at the many results with "Low" and "Very Low" confidence; I will focus only on those with "Moderate" or higher confidence.
Under these parameters, I came up with six promising matches. The most intriguing of which was to user Forcumjr. He descends from a Joseph Halterman who died in Davie County, NC in October 1845, and who married his wife, Rosanna Tate, in none other than Rowan County on 10 Jun 1829. The bondsman for their marriage was a Frederick Stirewalt. And who did Abraham, son of Christian, marry? Why, he married Enny Stirewalt on 1 Jan 1825 in Rowan County. I believe Joseph was likely another son of Christian, and with Ancestry's Moderate confidence that this user is a 5th-8th cousin of Ronnie, it appears even more likely that Mary Eagle Ribelin's mother was indeed a Haldeman who was likely a sister of Christian.
Four of the remaining five matches are of "Moderate" confidence, and they all seemingly connect back to the Haldeman/Holderman families in the areas of Bucks and Chester counties, Pennsylvania.
1. User Dobisearch descends from a Magdalene Halderman who married Henry Showalter. The Showalters were from Chester County, PA.
2. User lwendell183 descends from a Susanna Haldeman who married John O. Fretz and died in Bucks County in 1875. She was a daughter of a John Haldeman who came to Bucks County from Plymouth County, Massachusetts. He was the son of a John Haldeman b. 1694 who married a Rebecca Nightengale.
3. User Linda84 descends from a Catherine Holdeman who was from Ohio and Indiana. She was the daughter of a David Holdeman who was born in Ohio and died in Kansas in 1905. He was the son of a Christian Holdeman who died in Wayne County, Ohio and was born in Bucks County, PA. He was the son of a John Holdeman who died in Bucks County, PA in 1813. The user lists him as the son of another John who was the son of yet another John.
4. User ThomasCJenkins descends from the same Magdalene Halderman who married Henry Showalter as the above-mentioned user "Dobisearch". He has Magdalene as a daughter of Nicholas Haldeman and Catherine Gueldin. He has this Nicholas as the son of another Nicholas who died Chester County, PA in Sep 1762. He has Nicholas as the son of a Michael Haldeman.
The last Halterman DNA match is an intriguing one in a different way. This user, denshebailey1, connected to Ronnie with 96% certainty that they are 4th-6th cousins. His Halterman family, however, do not appear to have been Mennonite in origin. He descends from a Catherine Halterman who married a Solomon White. She was a daughter of Adam Halterman and Sarah Peck, and they were from Pendleton County, Virginia. Adam's father was apparently a Charles Halterman who he has as being born in Germany and marrying an Elizabeth Huffman. How accurate this is I can't be sure without delving into this family, but it is an interesting connection nonetheless. It is also possible that we connect to this user through a line other than the Halterman family, a possibility with every one of these matches.
However, the sheer number of matches with moderate confidence seems to point to the probability that Mary Eagle Ribelin was indeed the daughter of a Haldeman, and I will keep that assertion in my records until proven otherwise.
A final note: Some online Eagle genealogies attribute a handful of other children to George b. 1781 and his wife. They list a Daniel b. 1805, "Katie Anna" (some with no birth date, some with date of 18 May 1818), Noah b. 14 Jul 1819, and Anna Maria b. 22 Jun 1823. Please note that there is absolutely zero proof that any of these children existed, they are most likely figments of the imagination of some long-gone researcher. Daniel is the only "real" possibility as George does have a son under age 10 in his 1810 household, but there is no proof of this child's name, if he was indeed George's child.
I hope this post will be of help to Eagle researchers. Please feel free to e-mail me or leave comments with any other thoughts or information.
