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Gertraut DERR 1772-1843 |
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Peter SCHEIRER 1769-1846 |
Maria Margretha HAUENSTEIN 1749-1803 |
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Jacob SCHULTZ 1750-1803 |
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Margretha SCHEIRER 1794-1818 |
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Adam SHULTZ 1789-1864 |
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Judith SHULTZ 1816-1895 |
Judith received her elementary education in Somerset County PA, while her husband was educated in Zeilbach, Germany as a miller.
Judith Shultz* was the last of four children born to Adam Shultz* and Margretha Scheirer*(1794-c1816). Margretha died when Judith was still a baby, so Judith was raised by Margretha's mother, Gertrude (Derr) Scheirer, and Adam Shultz's second wife, Nancy Schockey. Adam and Nancy had 14 children between them and raised a total of 18 children.
Margretha Scheirer* is the daughter of Peter Scheirer* (1769-1846), and Gertraut Derr* (1772-1843). Peter Scheirer is the son of John Scheirer* (1735-___?) and his wife Elizabetha ___?* (1741-1817)
Judith's father, Adam Shultz* was the son of Jacob Schultz*, an immigrant from Germany, whose ancestral family had lived in West Prussia (now Poland), and then Switzerland, Germany, and finally America. Once in America, Jacob began to spell his surname "Schultz" as "Shultz" - without the "c". The Schultz family was originally Mennonite in West Prussia, but may have changed to Lutheran in Switzerland or in America. Jacob Schultz had moved from farmland along the Vistula River in West Prussia (now Poland) into Poltz (now Paultz, and absorbed into Berne) a small Protestant town in Switzerland because of a policy of branding Protestants, and other non-Roman Catholic landowners in West Prussia. The practice of branding was done to determine which landowners should pay a special tax, because they did not pay tithes to the Roman Catholic Church.
The surname Schultz appears to be Prussian. The name, "Jacob Schultz" appears on lists of branded (and therefore taxed) West Prussian property owners in 1727. The Complete Brandregister of 1727 is a list of landowners who were branded (and taxed) in West Prussia, and it may provide a clue as to this Schultz family history. This Brandregister lists 13 men surnamed Schultz including 3 named Jacob Schultz, one in Gross Mausdorf, one in Marjenau (Marienau), and one in Die Vorhoffsche (Tiegenhoff). Whether any of these are related as ancestors of Jacob Schultz (1750-1803) is difficult to ascertain. In the Mennonite Baptisms in Tiegenhagen, 1782-1800, shows two Jacob Shultz Baptisms: one in 1782 and one in 1788, both in Petershagen.