Snowflake, Arizona

I recently heard from Dennis Waterman of Snowflake, Arizona (can you believe that?), who wrote, “Thank you for your history articles on Amish Acres Website. Yesterday I read your Christian history and today I read your Pletcher Family history. I taught history for 20 years and lately have become very interested in German families, culture, history, migrations, and Elkhart County German religions. This has all the stuff of a sweeping James Michener novel. As for Amish Acres, I greatly admire entrepreneurs and it looks like you have grabbed onto a dream and blessed the lives of many on many family trees both roots and branches.

PS At this point my biggest quest is to find my John Waterman -1810 born in Pa. and his parents. It seems like they followed families and preachers or pastors. Have you heard of Stair as a Mennonite name?"

I often hear from people looking for their Anabaptist family roots. The subject is not my area of expertise, so I replied that for Mennonite genealogy he might try the following sources:

1. The Mennonite Historical Library in the The Good Library, Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, which is celebrating its 100 years anniversary with a conference, May 5 and 6, 2006.

2. The Mennonite Encyclopedia, published by Herald Press through the Mennonite Publishing Network. This gigantic resource covers the 435-year history of the faith, life, and culture of Anabaptists in Europe and Mennonites throughout the world. Presented are people, movements, and places in their relation to Mennonites. A few of the many articles covered are Argentina, Arminianism, Baptism, Baptist, Brazil, Calvin, Church, Communion, Congo, Deaconess, Education, Farming, Furniture, Grebel, Hubmaier, Hymnology, Industry, Literature, Marriage, Publishers, Reedley, Ukraine, and Zurich.The Mennonite Encyclopedia was jointly edited by historians and scholars of the Mennonite Church, General Conference of Mennonites, and Mennonite Brethren Church. More than 2,700 writers contributed articles to this reference work.

3. The Fred J. Reynolds Historical Genealogy Department of the Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana, was organized in 1961 by the library director for whom it was named. The department's renowned collection contains more than 300,000 printed volumes and 314,000 items of microfilm and microfiche. This collection grows daily through department purchases and donations from appreciative genealogists and historians. Because of the collection's size and continuous growth, the information in the following holdings summary will necessarily be brief and representative in nature.

4. Consulting the The Canadian Mennonite Historical Society and Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, you can triangulate Mennonite migration across the upper Midwest.

5. You will get the Amish perspective of the Anabaptist movement through Amish Society, John A. Hostetler, Johns Hopkins University Press, is the most authoritative and comprehensive sociological study of the Amish.