52 Ancestors - Week 20 - Benedict Yuchli and the Ephrata Cloister

Yeakle, Jackle. Juchli, and Yeakely: These are the names in the history books. Then there are the names used by census takers and other outsiders with more creative natures like Youghli, Yuchli, and Yuckley. What does this have to do with Benedict Yuchli and the Ephrata Cloister?

Benedict Yuchli was born in 1710 in Switzerland and arrived in Pennsylvania in 1736 at the age of 26. My mom's research indicates that he didn't live at the Cloister but had a farm nearby. There is documentation stating he provided lumber for the Cloister to build one of the larger buildings.

There is no mention of his wife's name but it believed her last name was Wenger and they had three children.

Benedict Yuchli died in November of 1741 at the age of 31. He was a very young man when he died and we don't have any indications of the cause of his death. However, he left two boys to carry on his name, regardless of how it's spelled.

Sounds good right?

Not so fast...My mother, the ultimate genealogist, tracked the family back to the Ephrata Cloister. She did it with actual footwork since the Internet was not available when she started. She actually gathered more documentation that can be found online so when I started on the Yeakley side, I had documents to scan and add to Ancestry.com. It is a shame that she never had the opportunity to use Ancestry.com. She would have loved it. At 80 years old, she was more computer savvy than most of the kids today. She has been gone 15 years and I am still wading through the documents, pictures, and notes she left for me.

While I have the documentation my mother gathered, I was having difficulty matching it with the information online. Just recently I ran across a conversation on Genealogy.com. In essence, it said that the book that everyone had used for research called "Counting Kindred" is wrong and George Yeakley married Anna Laucks, not Anna Deppen. Furthermore, the conversation went on to say that not only was the spouse of George Yeakley wrong, Benedict Yuchli was not the correct father and the Yeakley's we come from were not the ones that were at the Ephrata Cloister.

I contacted the Historical Society in Cocalico, Pennsylvania. They did a little research for me and found Benedict Yuchli was not the correct father for our side. They did confirm that our George Yeakley was correct and he did marry Anna Deppen. "Counting Kindred" was never documented and there are no sources to back it up. It has been discounted as a credible source. Written by Elmer Elsworth Deppen in 1867, at least we know the family migrated from Switzerland.

It seems that I am back to square one and completely frustrated at this turn of events. Still, we can count George Yeakley and Anna Deppen so we have a new starting point.

BTW, we have visited the Ephrata Cloister and I recommend a visit for anyone wanting to get a taste of how they lived. It is truly a magnificent place. 

Historical societies - a great place for research on family history

On my upcoming blog post on the A to Z challenge, specifically "Y", I bemoan the fact that my ancestors hide behind other names and make it difficult to track them. I am having trouble with Benedict Yuchli. Apparently he's not mine but belongs to other Yeakley's who are semi-related to me.

In desperation, I wrote the Cocalico, Pennsylvania historical society hoping they could direct me to some source that would help clear up the confusion. I received a reply yesterday from Cynthia Marquet, the librarian at the Cocalico Library with more information than I expected. While she could not make the connection either, she did verify some of the rest of the facts and she has also sent my questions to the Ephrata Cloister to see what they have.

Historical libraries are a great place to go to when all else fails. Actually, they are probably the first place I should go. I have had great success with not only the Cocalico library but the one in La Farge, Wisconsin. When you live in California, it is difficult to do the research in far away places. We vacation once a year in the mid-west but getting to Pennsylvania is not on the agenda.

So a big thanks to Cynthia for her help. Her response will be posted on the "Y" post that will need to be rewritten to share the new information. As I have stated before, family history is fluid and changes with the ebb and flow of facts and details. And will the real father of George Yeakley please reveal yourself!