Mertz Genealogy - Person Sheet
Mertz Genealogy - Person Sheet
Name9G GF Nicholas Umstat 
Birthabout 1625
Death4 October 1682, Kriegsheim, Germany
My Comments notes for 9G GF Nicholas Umstat
I have said repeatedly in many places in my family histories that you can’t believe most things you find on the Internet calling itself genealogy. Too often it is nothing but nonsense from one place cut-and-paste into some other place, the result of which is even more nonsense. No source documents are cited, and if any of the information came from original research, all reference back to that original source, where there might have been some credibility, has been lost in the successive cut-and-paste sessions that have followed.
But every once in a while I find an exception to this admonition. There is a site authored by Cris Hueneke devoted to what he calls UM things. It is devoted to tracking the earliest Americans of the name Umstat, Umstead, Umbsted -- or any of a dozen or so other spellings. It is a wonderful site. Cris either has included images or transcriptions of or makes very specific reference to real source documents that help to tell the story and he comments, as necessary, on their significance.
It is hard to come away from this site and have even the tiniest doubt that the line of interest here -- Nicholas/Hans Peter/Eve (our line) -- has not been totally proven. And Cris takes issue along the way with myths and mis-statements that have been published about the line that he believes are in error -- such as specific dates of birth, death, etc. The most important of these errors actually is whether the family should be considered of Crefeld, as many people say but Cris believes is not true, or of Kreigsheim, which is what Cris believes.
In particular, Cris published an article analyzing some of the conclusions of Samuel Pennypacker who purported to give some statements about the European origins of the Umstat family. Samuel was related, as are we, to many of the families of early Germantown and he wrote a history of that place. I think anyone descended from any one of those early families must be also descended from several others simply because there were only a certain small number of families there and marriages could only take place between this limited number of families.
Samuel wrote this, for example: “As it seemed to be a duty which could not be avoided, I have written the following history of the settlement of one of the most interesting of the American burghs. A descendant of Hendrick Pannebecker, Abraham Op den Graeff, Paul Kuster, Cornelius Tyson, Peter Conrad, Hendrick Sellen, Hans Peter Umstat and probably of William Rittenhouse, all of them among the early residents of Germantown."
Samuel Pennypacker said that Nicholas Umstat was the father of the immigrant Hans Peter Umstat and furthermore that Nicholas died at 4 o’clock in the morning on 4 Oct 1682 in Crefeld, Germany. Hueneke has searched for and found the base documents that Pennypacker used in drawing his conclusions. He discusses in one place whether the statement that it was 4 o’clock AM is an accurate translation of a certain document but the time he died doesn’t especially interest me.
What does interest me is Cris’s determination that, despite Pennypacker’s assertions, the Umstats were not of Crefeld.
It is interesting though that in debunking this one aspect of Pennypacker’s work, that Cris still has high praise and regard for the overall work that Pennypacker did. He said, as I have said about other works, it is quite amazing what he accomplished before the days of computers and the Internet (and Chris adds copy machines) and that just because a later researcher can find errors given the vast additional amount of resources available to them, it should not diminish the earlier work.
I agree.
But in any event, Nicholas Umstat, according to the work of Cris Hueneke and based on documents he found that Pennypacker did not was not of Crefeld, rather he was of Kriegsheim. These are the first two places from which the earliest Germantown residents came.
He cites several reasons for Pennypacker’s mistake. First and foremost, since the majority of early Germantown residents were from Crefeld, unless one had evidence to the contrary, the logical assumption was that Crefeld was the more likely place of origin.
But every once in a while I find an exception to this admonition. There is a site authored by Cris Hueneke devoted to what he calls UM things. It is devoted to tracking the earliest Americans of the name Umstat, Umstead, Umbsted -- or any of a dozen or so other spellings. It is a wonderful site. Cris either has included images or transcriptions of or makes very specific reference to real source documents that help to tell the story and he comments, as necessary, on their significance.
It is hard to come away from this site and have even the tiniest doubt that the line of interest here -- Nicholas/Hans Peter/Eve (our line) -- has not been totally proven. And Cris takes issue along the way with myths and mis-statements that have been published about the line that he believes are in error -- such as specific dates of birth, death, etc. The most important of these errors actually is whether the family should be considered of Crefeld, as many people say but Cris believes is not true, or of Kreigsheim, which is what Cris believes.
In particular, Cris published an article analyzing some of the conclusions of Samuel Pennypacker who purported to give some statements about the European origins of the Umstat family. Samuel was related, as are we, to many of the families of early Germantown and he wrote a history of that place. I think anyone descended from any one of those early families must be also descended from several others simply because there were only a certain small number of families there and marriages could only take place between this limited number of families.
Samuel wrote this, for example: “As it seemed to be a duty which could not be avoided, I have written the following history of the settlement of one of the most interesting of the American burghs. A descendant of Hendrick Pannebecker, Abraham Op den Graeff, Paul Kuster, Cornelius Tyson, Peter Conrad, Hendrick Sellen, Hans Peter Umstat and probably of William Rittenhouse, all of them among the early residents of Germantown."
Samuel Pennypacker said that Nicholas Umstat was the father of the immigrant Hans Peter Umstat and furthermore that Nicholas died at 4 o’clock in the morning on 4 Oct 1682 in Crefeld, Germany. Hueneke has searched for and found the base documents that Pennypacker used in drawing his conclusions. He discusses in one place whether the statement that it was 4 o’clock AM is an accurate translation of a certain document but the time he died doesn’t especially interest me.
What does interest me is Cris’s determination that, despite Pennypacker’s assertions, the Umstats were not of Crefeld.
It is interesting though that in debunking this one aspect of Pennypacker’s work, that Cris still has high praise and regard for the overall work that Pennypacker did. He said, as I have said about other works, it is quite amazing what he accomplished before the days of computers and the Internet (and Chris adds copy machines) and that just because a later researcher can find errors given the vast additional amount of resources available to them, it should not diminish the earlier work.
I agree.
But in any event, Nicholas Umstat, according to the work of Cris Hueneke and based on documents he found that Pennypacker did not was not of Crefeld, rather he was of Kriegsheim. These are the first two places from which the earliest Germantown residents came.
He cites several reasons for Pennypacker’s mistake. First and foremost, since the majority of early Germantown residents were from Crefeld, unless one had evidence to the contrary, the logical assumption was that Crefeld was the more likely place of origin.