My name is Ed Eversole. My brother, Jack, and I are very interested in our family's history. As you may, or may not, know, there are 133 known ways of spelling our last name. Only about 14 of these ways are in common use today by the nearly 4000 families having telephones in the United States. (I shall use EV/EB as a shortcut to referring to any and all ways of spelling our last name in these newsletters.) As far as has been determined, most of these families are descended from six immigrants to this country in the early to middle 1700's. Another group appears to be descended from a few other immigrants coming here in the mid 1800's. All may be descended from common ancestors in Switzerland.
Some of what we know about our ancestors is the result of information gathered by Amos Ebersol and published in a "little" book in 1879 entitled An Ebersol Memorial. This was followed 60 years later by a monumental work with over 5000 individual entries-The EBERSOL Families in America -1737-1937. It was authored and published by Amos's grandson, the Reverend Charles E. Ebersol. Since then, there have been several efforts detailing the descendants of specific branches of our family tree.
Currently there are several serious efforts going on documenting various Eversole and Ebersole branches and allied families. We'll try to report on these efforts in future issues of E162.
WHY E162
Whence cometh the strange title for the Newsletter. Those of
you into genealogy of course have recognized its source. For
the rest of you, more normal folk, E162 is the Soundex code
for our surname. That is, it is a code used widely to
describe names that sound alike. Thus almost every possible
spelling of our last name is coded E162 in the Soundex
system.
EDITOR'S EFFORTS
My own efforts are concerned with two separate but related
projects. First, like most family historians, I am gathering
information about my grandchildren's direct heritage in hopes
that somebody will be interested, some day.
Second, and hopefully of much wider interest, is laying the
groundwork for the establishment of a permanent archive of
information about EV/EB families for use by future family
historians. The goals of this project are outlined elsewhere
along with some of the specific tasks required. A status
report on my current task (Creating a comprehensive data base
is also found elsewhere in this newsletter.
SCRAPBOOK
Since the purpose of this newsletter is to draw our far flung
relatives closer together, I intend to borrow freely from
other already established and successful family newsletters.
One fascinating idea used by the Hoelscher-Buxkemper Family
Association of Texas is the collection of newsclippings about
family members. These are kept in a scrapbook displayed at
their Family Reunions and excerpts published in their
newsletter. If you know of any notice or writeup of an EV/EB
family member please clip it and send a copy to me. Honors,
awards, accomplishments of any kind. They don't have to be
earthshaking, although those kind are good, too. Our goal is
to show the kind of things you and your cousins may be doing
that you would talk to them about over the picnic table at a
reunion. For example, did you know that one of our cousins
has an old grain mill building full of early settlers' tools
and other artifacts that are slated to become a Museum in
Appalachia.
GERMAN GOBLINS GENERATE GENEALOGY GOLDMINE
If the authorities of Pennsylvania had not been afraid of the
unknown impact that German immigrants might have on their
province, one of the most unique genealogical resources
available would never had been created.
The concern was first expressed in 1717 by Gov. William
Keith who convinced the Council to require the captains of 3
ships to produce lists of the Palatines whom they had
imported. There appears to have been no further action for
ten years. Then the Board, in response to a request from a
new governor, Patrick Gordon, on Sept. 21. 1727, issued
orders for the "Masters of Vessells importing them
("Pallatines")" to provide lists of "these People". Further
the immigrants were to sign oaths of allegiance to George the
Second, King of England, and to declare fidelity to the
Proprietor of the province (Pennsylvania).
The result of these actions preserved for historians and
genealogists the names of tens of thousands of names
including those of our direct ancestors. No such treasure
exists for any of the other immigrations ports of the times.
For more details see Pennsylvania German Pioneers-
Strassburger and Hinke.
DATABASE STATUS
My current activities are centered on preparing a data base
containing all the known data available on all EV/EB names.
The first phase was to capture the data in the Rev. E's book,
since it was, and is, the largest single source of EV/EB data
known. At present 1761 individuals born with the surname of
Ebersole, 1096 Eversoles, 169 Eversulls, 160 Ebersols and 44
Ebersohls plus 744 males and 922 females who married into the
families for a total of over 4900 EV/EB individuals have been
entered.
Phase 2 -the proofreading of that data is under way. I am
using the top-rated genealogical program The Master
Genealogist since it provides for multiple descriptions of
the same piece of data and for extensive modification as new
or more accurate data becomes available.
For reasons like file size, time, cost, and practical
usability, only individuals who used an EV/EB surname are now
being entered. Prior surnames of women who have married EV/EB
men and the surnames of men who have married EV/EB women are
also entered, where known, so that connections to other
surname resources can be pursued.. Hundreds more EV/EB
individuals are listed in other documents on hand. With over
3600 known EV/EB families listed in U. S. phone books today,
there is obviously lots of data to keep us busy.
A PERMANENT ARCHIVE
As some of you know, I am interested in establishing a
permanent, easy to access, source of information about EV/EB
families. Most family historians are usually concerned with
documenting information about the 3-6 generations of
descendants having a common set of ancestors. Thus they
concentrate on those people (aunts, uncles, cousins and
grandparents,) of most interest to, or genetically related
to, the people who would normally attend a family reunion.
Such efforts are the most popular, highly desirable, ongoing
and ever changing subjects for study. The EV/EB archives
would, of course, provide only a part of the information of
interest to such researchers; but combined with other Surname
resources a reliable source of EV/EB data should make the
tasks of future family historians much easier. The goals of
this project would be fourfold as shown below, along with
some of the tasks required.
A. Establish a source of reproducible vital statistics source records.
FREE
This issue of E162 is free. To continue receiving it, please
submit some data for the EV/EB archives along with your
current email and/or U.S Postal Service mailing address. If
you know of an interested researcher who is not on-line, they
can receive a printed version of E162 by requesting it. Data
submitted should be about :
* EV/EB family members born since 1936, or
* corrections to, or additions to, EV/EB data in the Rev E's
book, or in Chesnut's On-line data base, or
* copies of documentation verifying existing data, or
* an accurate description of the location of such
documentation.
If the information submitted is about someone still living,
only the name, date of birth and relationship will be made
available to anyone else without appropriate written
permission.
If you do not want to receive future issues of E162 please notify me and your name will be removed from the mailing list.
YOUR INPUT
Your contributions of ideas and articles for inclusion in
E162 are welcomed and needed. Reunion and other family
gathering reports are especially desired.
Send them to:Ed Eversole
16100 Snowshoe Lane
TEHACHAPI
CA 93561-8423
or click here to
send an email to me.
email:[email protected]