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- Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 10:42:29 -0800
- Reply-To: Frieda Davison <fdavison@SFSUVAX1.SFSU.EDU>
- Sender: ROOTS-L Genealogy List <ROOTS-L@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
- From: Frieda Davison <fdavison@SFSUVAX1.SFSU.EDU>
- Subject: Hessian soldiers
- Comments: To: roots list <roots-l@vm1.nodak.edu>
- Lines: 28
-
- Thanks to various ones who sent me messages over the past few weeks
- regarding Hessian soldiers. As a result of the mind expanding on
- spelling I think I have a clue about mine. For those of you who may
- not have been on the net, my ancestor is one Jacob Rasnake. We know
- that the name has gone through countless spelling changes and I was
- flat out of possible new ones until I posted a query on this list.
-
- Last Friday, I found a copy of Clifford Smith's "Mercenaries from
- Ansbach and Beyreuth, Germany who remained in America after the
- Revolution". In it there is one entry for a "Johann Ruerhersneck".
- There is only one person listed with that name. Since the family
- legend was that the ancestor was kidnapped in his wheat fields, this
- would make sense that there might be only one. Also from the discussions
- of this group, I think I understand that while he used Jacob, he might
- have had several names, one of which could have been Johann. In some
- ways I feel that I am really reaching to make this fit. But at the
- same time it is the first instance that we have found ANYTHING which
- remotely looks as though it could be our ancestor. I can visualize
- him coming into Shenandoah Co., Virginia after the war which had
- a lot of German settlers but which also had tons of Scots. Given the
- sound of his name, I could see where those Scots would have begun
- spelling it in the various ways that we have found in public records:
- i.e. Raversnuck, Rareschnicht, and finally Rasnake, Rasnick, Rasnic.
-
- Thanks to everyone. Will begin anew on searching this once dead line
- and see if it has arisen!
-
- Frieda Davison
-