|
Dominick and
Spouses | ||
|
1. Jacob DURNERMUBHOR - great great grandfather of
immigrants b. 1596/1600, Saifniz, Austria; d. 1640,
Machtolsheim, Württemberg, Germany.
The region of Württemberg, where Jacob settled, turned
Protestant in 1534. Germany wasn't yet federated, but was under the rule
of regional duchies (Wilhelm Ludwig of Württemberg at the time) and was
immersed in war, famine and religious strife. Jacob may have gone
there for religious reasons.
Saifniz / Saifnitz, Jacob's birthplace, is now in Italy,
near the borders of Austria and Slovenia. It has been renamed Camporosso
in Valcanale, and is in the region called Friuli-Venezia-Gulia, as well as
by the name of its main city, Trieste. Diplomatic documents of the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy relating to WWI state that the region was ceded
back to Italy circa 1920. It had been under Venetian rule prior to the
Austrian. The question arises of whether Jacob's name was also changed
from Dominic. – One family genealogist has them as coming from Salzburg,
rather than Saifniz, Austria (see below). Salzburg and Saifniz were
both Catholic, while Württemberg was Protestant. –
Dominicus (Lat. and Dutch) means "God" or "of God".
Child of Jacob Durnermubhor and Unknown (b. 1610):
2. Hans DAMINIG – great grandfather of immigrants changed
his name to Daminig (the "g" is pronounced "k"), 1674
b. 1636/7, Saifniz, Austria; d. 6-6-1684, Machtolsheim,
Württemberg, Germany –a village of about 400 in Hans' time, now a part of
Laichingen, Baden-Württemburg, 66.4 km southeast of Stuttgart – first
wife, Maria Metzin, and child, Catharina, died m. 1-2-1669/70 to Barbara
SCHEIBLEN – great grandmother of immigrants b. 28-9-1649, Machtolsheim,
Germany; d. 23-2-1721/22 (same) _daughter of Hans SCHEIBLER and Barbara
HEUNTZ (the German suffix, "-en" or "-in" is feminine)
Children of Hans Daminig and Barbara Scheiblen include:
3. Michael DOMINIG – grandfather of immigrants (4th of 4,
two of whom died in infancy) the original name was struck through and
changed to Dominig on Michael and siblings birth records b. 7-10-1674,
Machtolsheim, Germany;
d. 9-8-1705 (same) m. 21-8-1695 to Margaretha SCHOLLIN – grandmother of immigrants b. 1669; d. 25-12-1745, Machtolsheim, Germany. After Hans died, Margaretha married Andreas Stohlor, a
tailor, who taught his trade to Michael. Michael also farmed.
Children of Michael Dominig and Margaretha Schollin
include:
4. Andreas DOMINICK – father of immigrants (1st of 4) b.
21-12-1695, Machtolsheim, Germany; d. after 1751
m. 5-10-1717 to Dorothea KOCH / GOCKLEN – mother of
immigrants b. 1691, Merklingen (?), Germany; d. 24-2-1749/50,
Machtolsheim.
_daughter of Andreas KERLER and Unknown. After Dorothea's
death, Andreas married Maria Grässle (1750). He was a mercenary soldier.
Children of Andreas Dominick and Dorothea Koch or Gocklen
include:
5. Andreas DOMINIG / Andrew DOMINY – immigrant (1st
of 6), b. 10-8-1720 , Machtolsheim, Germany; d. after 1772, Crane Creek,
Richland Co., SC m. 22-4-1752 to, and divorced from, Barbara REYERLIN /
REULEN – immigrant
– she was orphaned b. 26-3-1720/21, Machtolsheim, Germany; d. after 1768, Crane Creek, Richland Co, SC _daughter of Andreas REYLER and Walburga MAJERS (or Catharina ____). (Walburga is a name with pre-Christian origins.
Walpurgis Night, also Witches Night, which is April 30, May Day Eve, is a
rite of spring and a time when the veil between living and dead is said to
be thin. Its patron was Christianized as Saint Walpurgis.)
Andreas / Andrew and Barbara immigrated with brother Johann Dominig / John Dominy, John's wife and child, Maria or Michael; and possibly sister Margaretha; as well as newly married friends, Michael Hentz and Anna B. Oerterlin. They sailed, just after their weddings, from Rotterdam, on the Caledonia (captain, Alex Harvey), 1752, to SC, USA, where they were granted land. Their names were anglicized. Infant, Walpurga, is recorded as having boarded the Caledonia, but not as having disembarked. She was less than a year old. – Andrew, like his father, was a mercenary soldier in Germany, then a Colonial soldier in SC for the English occupation, possibly a conscript. His friend, Michael Hentz, was murdered by the Weberites in SC., 1761. The two couples were neighbors in the Dutch Fork, a Germanic region of SC. – One or more of Andrew's siblings may have settled in NY, with the name Dominick. Children of Andrew Dominy and Barbara Reyerlin include: 6. Henry DOMINICK (3rd of 3) b. 1757, Newberry, SC; d.
1-1-1836 (same) m. 1789 to Margaretha / Margaret FELLERS, b.1765; d.
4-3-1844, Newberry, SC _daughter of Johannes / John Michael(?) FELLERS
(1729/35-1800) – immigrant, and Sarah ___ (-1793). Fellers were
Dutch speaking Germans.
Henry was the first of our line born in America and the
first Dominick; hence, he's referred to in records as Henry1. He was
married to Agnes Fellers (2 children) before Margaret. He fought in
the Revolutionary War, was captured by the Tories and escaped; he applied
for and received a government pension. (His horse, Ball, survived
the war with him.)
Henry and Margaret were buried in the Dominick Workman Cemetery, SC. Children of Henry Dominick and Margaret Fellers include:
7. George DOMINIICK (6th of 12) b. 6-2-1796, Newberry, SC;
d. 8-7-1840 (same) m. 1820 to Mary Polly MOCK
b. 15-1-1801; d. 27-1-1848 George and Mary were buried in
the George Dominick Cemetery, SC
Children of George Dominick and Mary Polly Mock include:
8. Henry Middleton DOMINICK (6th of 6) b. 5-9-1828, Newberry, SC; d. 20-1-1904 (same) m. 17-7-1853 to Rhoda ("Rhody") BANKS b. 24-4-1834; d.
28-8-1896
_daughter of James T. BANKS b. 11-8-1807, d. 29-7-1838,
and Drucilla RIDDLE, b. 29-11-1808; d. 26-5-1894
_ _g daughter of James BANKS (1780-1811) and Levicia
Lake(?) b. 6-1-1785; d. 15-10-1854]
_ _ _g g daughter of Rivers BANKS (1767-1800) and Mary
___
Children of Henry Middleton Dominick and Rhoda Banks include: 9. James Simpson DOMINICK (7th of 7) b. 24-11-1854/5,
Newberry, SC; d. 1924 (same) m. Fannie Clementine MOORE b. 1861; d. 1918,
Chappells, SC _daughter of David Langdon MOORE (b. 1834, Newberry, SC; d.
Coweta Co., GA) and Amanda COUNTS
_ _g daughter of Robert Thompson MOORE b. 14-11-1812; d.
17-10-1849 and Catherine GRIFFITH, b. 5-12-1816; d.
1-5-1897 ; Newberry, SC
_ _ _g g daughter of Samuel MOORE (1791-1841) and Mary
HODGE
James, Fanny and some of their children are buried at
Crossroads Baptist Church, Chappell, SC
Children of James Simpson Dominick and Fannie C. Moore
include:
10. Roy Rice DOMINICK (7th of 12) b.1888, SC; d.
15-12-1954, Newberry, SC m. 26-12-1910 to Fannie Florence REEDER (called
Florence) (1st of 3) b. 14-4-1886/93; d. 6-8-1970, Newberry,
SC
_daughter of Carrie WHEELER and William REEDER or
(E.?) Frank SATTERWHITE. Frank's mother, Mary Virginia, might have
been Cherokee or Lumbee, her father, Unknown, b. 1815.
Florence sang to her children to distract them from
hunger. Roy was said to have walked with a stick and slept with a
gun. He was a master stonemason who worked as an itinerant
bricklayer.
Children of Roy Dominick and Florence Reeder include:
11. Fannie Letitia (Susan) DOMINICK (6th of 7) b.
24-6-1920, Newberry, SC; d. 25-8-2007, Buffalo, NY –my mother
Susan was buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery, West Seneca, NY m.
4-1-1940 to Donald Daniel Morgan O'DONNELL
b. 1-10-1919, Buffalo, NY; d. 7-1-1993, Ventura, CA _son of Peter O'DONNELL, b. PA; d. Buffalo, NY, and Esther
MORGAN, Buffalo, NY
The Dominick line of the family, most recent first, 1920
to 1596:
Fannie (Susan) Dominick + Donald O'Donnell, Roy Dominick +
Florence Reeder, James Simpson Dominick + Fannie C. Moore, Henry Middleton
Dominick + Rhoda Banks, George Dominick + Mary Polly Mock, Henry
Dominick(1) + Margaret Fellers, Andreas Dominig / Andrew Dominy + Barbara
Reyerlin, Andreas Dominick + Dorothea Koch, Michael Dominig + Margaretha
Scholl, Hans Daminig + Barbara Schaiblen, Jacob Durnermubhor + Unknown
Florence and Roy Dominick's house in Newberry, SC, where
Fannie Dominick lived, with parents, six siblings and a cousin, during her
childhood—
The following pages contain the names of our progenitors, with siblings and placement in the family, *(see note) and following this, some history and comments. Child of Jacob Durnermubhor and Unknown:
i. Hans Daminig (1636/7 – 1684)
Children of Hans Daminig and Barbara Schaiblen:
i. Johannes (b. 1670 – died
young)
ii. Johannes (b. 1671 – died
young)
iii Hans Jacob, 1673
iv. Michael, (1674 – 1705) (our line)
Child of Michael Daminig and Margaretha Schollin:
1.
Andreas, (1695 – 1751) (first or only child)
Children of Andreas Dominig and Dorothea Gocklen:
1.
Andreas Dominig / Andrew Dominy (1720 – 1772) (our
line)
2. Johann / John Children of Andrew Dominy and Barbara Reyerlin:
1.
Walpurga (1751 – died in
infancy)
2. Andrew, (1755 – 1817) 3. Henry, (1757 – 1836) (our line) Children of Henry Dominick and Agnes Fellers (1st wife):
1.
Catherine, b. 1785; d.
1860
2. Henry, b. 1787; d. 1865 Children of Henry Dominick and Margaret Fellers (our
line):
3. Noah,
b. abt. 1789
4. Agnes, b. abt. 1790 5. Elizabeth, b. abt. 1795 6. George, (1796 – 1840) (our line) 7. Christina, b. abt 1798 8. David, b. 1800 9. Andrew, b. abt 1804 10. Mary, b. abt. 1805 11. Frances, b. 1815 12. Rachel, unknown Children of George Dominick and Mary Polly Mock: 1. Aaaron
Moses
2. Mary 3. George 4. Margaret 5. B. Lindsay 6. Henry Middleton (our line), ( 1828 – 1904) Children of Henry Middleton Dominick and Rhoda Banks:
1. Mary
Marcella
2. S. Christiana 3. Henrietta 4. Elizabeth 5. George Brady 6. Elliott Snowden 7. James Simpson (1854 – 1924) (our line) Children of James Simpson and Fannie Clementine Moore:
1. S.
Broaddus
2. A. Lamar 3. F. May 4. Langdon 5. Hoyt C. 6. Carey S. 7. Roy R. (1888 – 1954) (our line) 8. Bessie 9. Hayne W. 10. Wallace 11. Myrtis 12. Marie Children of Roy R. Dominick and Florence Reeder:
1. Reeder
Simpson (1911 – 1991)
2. Willie Frances (daughter) (1913 – 1972) 3. Maggie Blanche (1915 – 2007) 4. Sarah Mae (1918 - died in her 20's) child Tomye raised by Florence 5. Ocie Holloway (1919 – 1979) 6. Fannie Leticia (1920 – 2007) 7. Henry M. (1922 – 2001) Miscellaneous-
Most South Carolina Dominick's were farmers and some of
them obtained land grants. These grants were on the western
boundaries of settled lands; there were many obligations to fulfill and
taxes to pay, but the real price seems to have been that of placing their
bodies between a planter elite and the frontier. Most of the men who
settled there were also conscripted into the Confederate States Army
(CSA), which drove out the Cherokee and other Indians. Slaves and
cotton made SC one of the richest of the colonies. Some of the
Dominick's prospered. Many still live in the Dutch Fork and
neighboring Saxe Gotha, the region first settled by our forbears.
Notes on ethnicity— "Dutch" was a general term used to
designate Germanic language speaking peoples in Colonial America.
The fact that "Dominicus" is a Dutch (as well as an Italic) name, and also
that many Germans, including our forbears, sailed from Rotterdam, probably
added to the idea that we're of Dutch ancestry. Many of the women
who married Dominick's were also German, although some of them have
surnames that could be Dutch. Even now, in researching this project,
I find references to the Dutch Fork as having been a German settlement,
while Saxe Gotha is said to have been Dutch, and yet Saxe Gotha was named
for a state in 17th century Germany.
Despite the fact that I've heard family members disparage
Italians, the evidence suggests that the Dominick's might have Italian
ancestry, and then an admixture of German and others. When this European
mix came to America, it may have picked up one or more of the ancient
bloodlines of this continent, along, more than once, with those of the
British Isles. Going farther back, Saifniz, Austria, now Camporosso
in Valcanale, Italy, is in a region that was once a part of Byzantium, and
as such was perhaps open to Turkish, as well as Moorish (also on the Irish
side) and other bloodlines.
As my searches suggest a growing diversity of possibilities, the question of race and ethnicity seems to take on both more and less importance. What I mean by this is that I can't make it matter that I (or you) may be of mixed race and an apparently large number of ethnicities, yet it matters in a felt sense to know something of the soil my roots grow from. Then, even as I write the words, the idea seems tenuous. When I envision human history, I see it largely as swarming hordes over-running each other in waves that sweep over most of the world, and often, and certainly every region we're related to. How disconnected from the past for most of us to think ourselves white, or German (or Dutch). There may be no such thing as any of these, strictly speaking, but there is a sense of the past, and this, to my mind, seems to be a primary benefit of knowing who our ancestors were. Note on the Lumbee— While Mary Virginia Satterwhite is
recorded as Cherokee, the States failed to recognize a distinction between
that and other regional tribes at the time of Mary Virginia's
birth.
The Lumbee, a people that traces its history as a
re-constituted tribe to the 1700's, adopted the name Lumbee in 1952, and
first gained State and Federal status as a tribe in 1953; they include
remnants of several regional tribes that had all but died out, as well as
former and escaped slaves, and very possibly survivors of the Lost
Colony. Indians from whom they descend, and from whom we may also
descend, trace back 14,000 years. While having tribal status, the Lumbee
receive none of the state or federal tribal benefits that usually
accompany recognition, for the stated reason that they're of mixed
race.
The following account is linked to our history.
Note on the Weberites— While England placed Germans and
Dutch on the frontier and used them for protection, they, in doing so,
displaced them from intensely religious backgrounds (Machtolsheim, with
its tiny population, had an Evangelical Reformed Church, built in 1260)
and failed to provide them with an adequate number of
Germanic-language-speaking preachers. Whether you look at this
episode through a religious or a secular lens, there were numbers of
religious people thrown into an unfamiliar, hard, and extremely dangerous
environment, without the religious guidance and support they were
accustomed to. In this environment fanaticism flourished, and there
were numerous sects that departed from the canon of their Protestant
upbringing. Jacob Weber (various spellings) was the leader of one
such sect. He began by holding meetings in his house, believed
himself to be God incarnate, and designated others as Holy Ghost, Jesus,
and the Virgin Mary (his wife, Hannah).
There are precedents in other sects for some of the practices they adopted, found most specifically in the Radical Pietism they brought with them from Europe and some of its colonial variants. Where the Weberites departed was in murdering those who disagreed on points of doctrine. Andrew Dominig's friend, Michael Hentz (various spellings), as well as John George Schmidtpeter and Frederick Dauber, who was a slave and possibly a preacher, were murdered in this connection in 1761. By some accounts Michael was the 'Holy Ghost', by others a hapless intruder. Weber was hanged for the murders; most of his followers left the region (some under banishment), as did Michael Hentz's wife and children. Andrew's son, Andrew, the brother of Henry1, later organized a German speaking church. (James Dominey, a family researcher who says that our
ancestors immigrated to Machtolsheim from Salzburg, rather than Saifniz,
Austria, also claims that Michael Hentz was killed by slaves, whom he
caught practicing "their voodoo", and who were retaliated against by
whites in what came to be known as the Weber incident. The available
evidence doesn't support this claim, which was first made in 1975 –more
than 200 years after the murders—by Lee R. Gandee, Hexenmeister. Gandee
wrote that new information on the murders had been channeled to him
through the entity known as Seth. †)
The relevance of the Weber incident to our family is that
it plunged the Dutch Fork into an atmosphere of shame and secrecy, and it
seems likely that this influence survived and to some extent shaped not
only my mother and family, but also the population of the region in
general, many of whom we are related to. It seems, subjectively,
that my mother, who was born into an atmosphere of religious and social
guilt and economic privation (our family was, according to my mother, the
poorest of the poor during the Depression), transmitted this atmosphere in
a number of ways, one of them being in her choices of what information to
communicate and what to withhold about the past. By separating us,
her children, physically from the family, she gave herself a field within
which to create the impression that they had the kind of lives she wanted
us to emulate. In the ensuing atmosphere of untruths and unresolved
conflicts, then, it was we who she came to regard as shameful, and we've
wrestled with this precondition without knowledge or an understanding of
the past.
To be sure, there were other (and more familiar) factors
that contributed to this environment, among them the matter of Indian
ancestry in a racist family and social setting, as well as extreme
poverty, which some tried to alleviate through prostitution; and these
within the wider climate of a species of repression reserved especially
for the poor and the religious (my mother said that it wasn't that she
didn't believe in God, but that God didn't believe in her); but it seems
to me that history and the post-Weber environment of the region lent their
air to the atmosphere our Dominick forbears lived, struggled and died in,
and that this atmosphere and its stigma were still present in my mother's
lifetime, and may still be present in ours.
When I see my mother's life in this context, and as
expressive of her environment, she seems blameless to me, not as a
deceased object of grief might with time take on blamelessness, but as one
whose very life was the expression of that matrix within which it had its
being.
A story has it that Susan's mother, Fannie Florence
Reeder, was maltreated by her family because of her origins; that after
her father, Frank Satterwhite, left, her pregnant mother, Carrie Wheeler,
married again, to William Reeder, with whom she had two more children,
Frank and Myrtle, and that this family victimized Florence for being half
Indian. (Also, that Frank fled the law by jumping out a courthouse window
and on to a horse, later to send for Carrie, who turned him
down.)
Florence married Roy Dominick, a man whose affluent
parents, Fannie Moore and James Dominick, according to my mother,
disinherited him, possibly on account of Florence. (Fannie and
James, who owned a plantation –now referred to as a farm— whose lands
occupied the larger part of a county, themselves, later died in
ruin.) Florence, who may have been unstable, told her starving
children that she'd let them eat her if she could. My mother said
that Florence had a violent temper. There's also the suggestion that at
least some of her children were molested.
I can hardly imagine the atmosphere of want, desperation,
and misery in which my mother and grandmother lived much of their
lives. My father, passing through in his handsome uniform at the end
of WWII, must have seemed to my mother everything her life was not. She
fled with him to Buffalo, where he introduced her (and us) to another but
perhaps not unfamiliar hell. After he left, we lived in poverty and
with her seemingly unending rage. Some have questioned why she
permitted us to endure what we did. I can only surmise that it was
because it was, or seemed to be, less than what she endured, that when
your own damages are still half-buried, you can't see the suffering of
others, much less, the suffering you cause. I can no longer presume
to say that she should have been otherwise, but only that I might
be.
While I don't pass lightly here over the point that we inherited a shame-based legacy, I want to point out that ours is one story of a common type, singular only in its details. The passing of blame from parent to child is the underpinning of a milieu that has been the inheritance of generations, not only within our family, but also in society (and wherever religion dominates) as a whole, and in its particular way, American society. We seem at this time to be crossing the cusp of a kind of
personal and social vision that might bring us the perspective to face and
integrate our damages (or, it seems, annihilate ourselves), and would do
well to recognize that there is little about the nature of the past that
is unique to our line and yet, its legacy is ours, either to perpetuate or
to heal.
Some may hold that manipulations of the truth (of which
our family has seen many) both honor the dead and protect the
living. I believe, rather, that it's in knowing history that we
begin to be free of it, in the same way, for example, that knowing ones
actions are influenced by a repetition compulsion might lead to the
exercise of other, more conscious choices. This document is an attempt at
finding and sharing what is true. It was inspired by my
mother.
* It's possible to go sideways, following the lines of siblings as they spread, but for now, at least, rather than accounting for all of the cousins, etc., I'd like to turn my attention to learning more about the women who married the Dominick's, and also, to learning what I can about the O'Donnell's. (On cousins, et al., see the last sentence, below.) † In the interests of locating what is true, it seems necessary to acknowledge that the Saifniz / Salzburg debate might be as yet unsettled, although of two researchers that visited Machtolsheim, one of them, J. E. (Edd) Dorminey, wrote that church records, which were translated for him from the Old German, show that Jacob Durnermubhor was from Saifniz, while James Dominey, for the same reasons, claims that he was from Salzburg. While I'm not certain that James Dominey's version is incorrect, there are reasons for questioning his interpretations (see p. 10, e.g.). Nevertheless, James has an extensive genealogy of the family online, which, at the time of this writing, can be found by searching " descendants of Jacob Durnermubhor ". |
Return to Newberry County, South Carolina Genealogy Trails
This is a FREE website.
If you were directed here through a link for which you paid $ for, you can access much more FREE data via our Newberry County index page at
http://genealogytrails.com/scar/newberry/index.htm
Also make sure to visit our main Genealogy Trails History Group website at
http://genealogytrails.com
for much more nationwide historical/genealogical data and access to our other state/county websites.