Myth #3: He had other children by an earlier marriage

The family Bible discussed on the Myth #1 page of this website indicates that Johann Wilhelm Seeber (1721-1777) was married twice, in 1746 and 1756, and that he had six children by his first wife and six children by his second wife.

But he and his immediate family, as identified in the Bible, weren't the only Seebers living in the Mohawk Valley before the Revolution. There were other people with the Seeber name who lived in the same area, had close associations with each other, and were obviously related in some way.

Over the years, the problem for researchers -- a vexing one -- has been how to account for these "other" Seebers.

The most common hypothesis was that they were children of Johann Wilhelm by an earlier marriage not mentioned in the Bible. By this reasoning, if he had married at a young age, say about 18, he could have had several children by an unknown wife prior to 1746. This hypothesis was first proposed by Frederick Phillips in one of his letters to the St. Johnsville (NY) Enterprise and News; it was also discussed in Edward Seeber's research notes, in Margaret Bohart's research notes, and in the article I published in 2009 about Maria Elisabetha Goebel, the second wife of Johann Wilhelm.

Disproving the old hypothesis

There are a number of reasons that the "other" Seebers cannot be accounted for by saying they were children of Johann Wilhelm by an earlier marriage:

• There were too many of them. If Johann Wilhelm had married as early as age 18, in 1739 or 1740, he could have had at most three or four children before 1746, the first marriage documented in the family Bible. This wouldn't account for even half of the following Seebers who were probably born before 1746 and for whom we have solid documentation in the records of the Stone Arabia Dutch Reformed Church and Stone Arabia Lutheran Church:

  • Henry Seeber, married Veronica Berlet in 1767

  • Johannes Seeber, married Maria Wohlgemuth in 1769

  • Maria Catharina Seeber, married Philip Service in 1769

  • Maria Elisabetha Seeber, married Henry Moyer in 1770

  • Severinus Seeber, sponsor in 1764

  • Jacob Seeber whose son Jacob was baptized in 1760

  • Jacob Seeber whose son Jacob was a baptismal sponsor in 1760

  • Jacob Seeber, married Elisabetha Barbara Loucks in 1766

  • Gottfried Seeber, married Elisabeth Loucks in 1769

  • Maria Esther Seeber, married George Wabel before 1757

• Some of them were too old to be children of Johann Wilhelm. Examples include Jacob Seeber whose son Jacob was a sponsor in 1760 (the father must have been born before 1730), Jacob Seeber whose son was baptized in 1760 (the father probably was born before 1740), and Maria Esther (Seeber) Wabel (her first child was born in 1757).

• None of them was mentioned in the family Bible, which contains very detailed information about Johann Wilhelm, his wives and children. It is hard to imagine that an earlier wife and children, if they had existed, would have been omitted from the Bible.

• None of them was listed among the children of Johann Wilhelm who received a half-pay pension by virtue of their father's death in the Revolutionary War. The list includes most of Johann Wilhelm's children who were mentioned in the Bible and were still living when the pensions were authorized in 1784. If he had had other children by an earlier marriage, they surely would also have applied for and received a pension.

• Several of them have the same given names as children of Johann Wilhelm mentioned in the family Bible. The Bible documents that Johann Wilhelm had children after 1746 named Henry, Jacob, Johannes, Maria Catharina, and Maria Elisabetha. It is hard to believe that he would have given his children those names if he had had living children with the same names by an earlier wife.

• Most men in the Mohawk Vallery, prior to the Revolution, were in their 20s or older when they married for the first time. It would have been uncommon for Johann Wilhelm Seeber to have married as young as age 18.

In view of the above, and new information linking the "other" Mohawk Valley Seebers with people who emigrated from Bischwiller, we can now discard the hypothesis that Johann Wilhelm Seeber had an earlier wife and children not mentioned in the family Bible.