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Archiver > PALANCAS > 1999-06 > 0928735535


From: "Janice A. Frank" <>
Subject: Re: [PALANCAS-L] Brick Wall: Elizabeth wife of Henry Frank
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 02:05:35 -0400


wrote:
>
> Jan,
>
> Do you know anything about the parents of Henry Frank.
>
> I have a 2nd Great Grandmother whose name was Esther Franks, b. Oct., 1764,
> who married Abraham Bushman in 1788. We can not find who her Parents are.
> Our family has been looking for her parents some 120 years. We know they
> lived in the Strasburg twp. area.
>
> We have searched for Frank, Franck, Franks in south Eastern PA, for any who
> might have had a daughter Esther, but the name Esther has never been found
> among the Franks we have studied.
>
> Thanks for a reply,
>
> Ross

Ross - I think I corresponded with you before. Yes, I know plenty
about the parents, grandparents and on back of Henry Frank. She hasn't
been found among mine, either, nor among the not-mine that I know of.

The other thing I would say is that in my experience the Franks with
an 's' do not get mixed up with the ones without (though things are not
quite so clear, I have recently found out, in my Berks county branch,
but those 's's came in too late to help you).

Have you considered the possibility that she was a young widow and not a
born Franks? Not that I have one married to an Esther either, but I
will look again in the not-mines and see if I can find one. I am not
very optimistic but will let you know if I do.

I will offer some other thoughts:

1) apparently you do not know where she was born; she may have been an
immigrant and women and children were usually not listed on the ships.
Though most PaDutch arrived earlier than 1764, not all did.

2) was she, could she have been, Jewish? The reason I ask this is that
the Protestant PaDutch at that time did not generally use names like
Esther. They had names like Anna Maria, Maria Magdalena, Anna
Margaretha, Anna Elizabetha, well you get the idea. I know that there
were Jewish Franks in Lancaster in the mid-18th century, because my
immigrant was a Jacob, as was one of his sons and several of his
grandsons. So I had to sort out the Jacobs and I looked at all the
references in the PaArchives, and there was a Jewish Jacob Frank.

Best of luck!

Jan

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