Minerd.com will reach its 20th anniversary online on May 7, 2020. During 2019, as in the past two decades, the site has tried to provide its followers with fascinating content and cultural relevance tying together tens of thousands of branches of early Pennsylvania German families. At a time when our country is terribly divided in politics, race, gender, fake news and so much more, our big hairy audacious objective is to be a unifying presence. How to do this? Make contact with as many cousins as possible, share family history widely and encourage others to share their treasures for all to enjoy.

The website this past year drew more than 32,300 visitors who made more than 102,400 page impressions. Scores of newfound cousins took the time to reach out to make contact. Since Google searches generate more than 65 percent of our audience, a major strategy continues to be to build our network by making the site as appealing as possible to as many like-minded cousins and friends as possible. This is done by researching more family branches and adding more names, meaningful images and real stories to help more cousins from afar make a personal connection. And so 2019 was spent in frenetic activity, travel, deep research, countless hours of writing and publishing, and responses to scores of diverse emails, all of it meant to unite, not divide.

~ Monthly Visitor and Page Impression Counts ~

~ New Family Facebook Page and the National Reunion ~

Article published by the Little Big Horn Associates

One of the top highlights of the past year was the springtime launch of a national social media experiment, a member-only Facebook page for cousins and friends. It's a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, 36-day-a year virtual family reunion. On the page, cousins can post their own stories and photos, share obituary links and make new friends. Created on April 20, 2019, the page had grown to 449 members as of year-end. View the page>>>

The site’s content was shared via other publishing opportunities, among them an article about our family's connection with General Custer's brother, published by the Little Big Horn Associates Research Review, entitled “Speckled Legacy: Tom Custer in American Pop Culture.” The article was a finalist for the LBHA’s annual Lawrence Frost Award for best article in the magazine. Other outlets for Minerd.com material included third-party blog posts, newspaper articles, book citations and even the reunion newsletter of our kissin’ cousins, the Younkin-Younken-Youngkin clan.

Another way to reach out to the diaspora of cousins is through the Minerd.com Blog, with 21 posts made during the year, and our e-newsletter, emailed periodically to more than 500 cousins and friends.

Thomas Beck's blog post about the reunion

The most visible outreach to the family at large is the biennial National Minerd-Minard-Miner-Minor Reunion, held in Donegal, PA. The June 2019 gathering was broadcast via Facebook Live, for cousins unable to attend, and drew 66 cousins and friends from 12 states and 18 Pennsylvania towns. One cousin said that the day was "just plain gloriously wonderful and fun."

Another wrote that “I applaud all who I met and who have contributed so much over the years to keep the family ties strong. I pray that these bonds will expand and draw us closer together." The honor of the furthest-traveled went to David Mayle and his family from Oroville, CA and the oldest member to 95-year-old Dorothy (Bender) Krieg of Otsego, MI.

At the reunion, Joe McKnight of Connellsville, PA was elected treasurer, succeeding Doris (Sands) Hawker, of Morgantown, WV, who had served since 2001. As well, reunion co-founder and longtime secretary Rosella (Resh) Miner of Grantsville, MD retired from a position she had held since 1986. The husband-and-wife team of Robert and Kristen (Murphy) Krieg of Michigan volunteered to lead our next day-of reunion activities in 2021. More about the reunion recap>>>

At the grave of a cousin

In addition, as a double Younkin, I’ve been active for decades with the annual Junghen-Younkin Reunion of Somerset County, PA. In July, I led a tour of cousin graves at the Rockwood (PA) Odd Fellows Cemetery and served as auctioneer to raise funds for the Younkin Scholarship. Check out the Younkin Reunion Facebook page>>>

In July, I was honored to lead a tour of the historic International Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery at Rockwood, Somerset County, PA as part of the Younkin Reunion weekend. I also served as auctioneer benefitting the Younkin Scholarship, which this year raised more than $600. Among the graves we visited were descendants of the three Younkin brothers who originally settled in the county in the late 1700s, as well as pioneers Jacob and Catherine (Younkin) Minerd Jr. and Leonard and Martha (Minerd) Harbaugh.

Our stops included the final resting places of Amos and Nora (Cramer) Harbaugh as well as these Younkin cousins who shared Minerd-Miner DNA: Carl and Edna May (Conn) Gorsuch, Jonathan and Ella (Younkin) Hauger, George A. and Susan "Edith" (Younkin) Miller, Harry and Mallzena (Younkin) Shaffer, Alton Glen Sterner, John and Martha "Ella" (Swarner) Vough Jr., Charles and Elizabeth (Younkin) Wable, John M. and Sarah "Gertrude" (Younkin) Weaver, George and Missouri (Younkin) Wingerd, Clark Melvin and Olive (Hauger) Younkin, Daniel Martin Younkin and wives, John William "Emery" Younkin and wives and Levi Grant and Alice (Pritts) Younkin. Other Younkin cousin graves on the route were Earl and Blanche (Tedrow) Bowman, Henry and Barbara (Younkin) Swarner, John Wesley and Emma Grace (Younkin) Tedrow, Fremont and Malinda (Countryman) Younkin, Harvey Carl and Georgianna (Moon) Younkin and Milton Bruce and Minnie (Sechler) Younkin.

Our Younkin road trip group which placed a new grave marker for immigrant Heinrich Junghen.

Junghen newsletter with the Schrock bio

Earlier in the spring, I was happy to be part of an 11-person Younkin road trip to place a new marker at the grave of our common ancestor, Johannes "Heinrich" Junghen, at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, near Perkasie, Bucks County, PA. At his death in 1787, a small sandstone marker was placed on Heinrich's grave, with his name and dates of birth and death inscribed in his native German in precise capital lettering perfectly aligned. And so his marker sat, upright, visible and legible to anyone who came. It remained in place for decades, then for centuries, strong and solid. It remained a mute and rare reminder that this immigrant existed even as his living legacy of nine children fanned out to points west and produced 33 known grandchildren - 201+ great-grandchildren - and 913+ great-great grandchildren. Reunion treasurer Everett Sechler, who spearheaded the effort, wrote that it was the “fulfillment of a duty that has been needed to be done for future generations.” Others on the team were Thomas Bitner, Randall Henry, Nancy Koontz, Linda Marker, Susan (Younkin) Moon, Barbara Park, Laurel (Sanner) Piersel, Christine Sechler and Jill Younkin. Read more on my blog>>>

Younkin Reunion official Linda Marker has been a tremendous friend, as a sounding board, driver of ideas, tireless reunion organizer and gracious sharer of her vast portfolio of photography and knowledge. Her volunteerism with the Rockwood Area Historical Society and Meyersdale Public Library is impressive. She also edits the Junghen Newsletter with love, and in 2019 re-published my biography of Mary "Polly" (Younkin) Smith Schrock.

~ Ceaseless Research and Content Development ~

In 2019, the top research/publishing effort was devoted to our clan’s substantial connection with the Civil War. The work culminated in the Sept. 13 rollout of the new online Civil War Guide to the M-M-M-M family. It’s intended to be a user-friendly resource for interested cousins and students in these topics – Soldiers By Name - Their Regiments - Their Bloodiest Battles - Casualties - Prisoners of War (POWs) - Freed Slaves in the Family - At the Homefront. The 150 known Younkin-Younken-Youngkin Civil War soldiers are highlighted on their own page.

National Archives building inscription and my copies on the Archives' signature blue paper

To create a constant stream of new content involves a commitment of time, energy and funds as well as an understanding spouse. Travel is essential to tap into new research resources. In 2019 and the early weeks of 2020, I made two trips to the National Archives in Washington, DC, the 17th and 18th time I've worked there since 1987. As well, I made visits to the Civil War battlefields of Stone’s River, TN and Manassas, VA and cemetery walk-throughs and photography in Berks, Lehigh and Somerset Counties, PA and Marion County, WV.

Another focus of 2019 was a deeper dive into our German-ness – exploring the remnants of the values and traits brought by our ancestors from the Fatherland and where they might show up today. One of the most authentic ways to study this question is by examining the lives of the Gaumer branch of M-M-M-M cousins in the Reading to Allentown corridor of Pennsylvania. Generations of these cousins stayed put in the region and held onto their old ways over a much longer span of time. I used the opportunity of a weather-perfect, late September weekend to find and photograph family grave markers in the old German gothic script. I also wanted to document the extent to which generations of cousins continued to use the German language over many decades.

With stops at 10 cemetery sites, I came home with digital, high resolution photographs of more than 280 grave markers and the church buildings, some ancient, where the burying grounds are located. These graves represent 21 different branches of offspring of the Gaumers’ founding family, Revolutionary War veteran Johan Dietrich “Dieter” Gaumer and his wife Maria Elizabeth Meinert of near Alburtis. This rewarding experience was described in more detail in my Minerd.com Blog post, “Clues to Our German Roots in the Tide Pools of the Longswamp.”

~ It's All About People, People, People ~

The never-ending research and biography writing in 2019 introduced me to many interesting cousin personalities and their unusual contributions to Americana. Some of the highlights were:

~ For Reference: Updated Minerd.com Pages in 2019 ~