CHAPTER 2
LIPPARD FAMILY ORIGINS in GERMANY

In 1988 Homer made contact with the widow of Dr. Vernon Lippard and learned from her that her husband had been Dean of the Yale Medical School for fifteen years; their daughter Lucy is a noted art critic. Dr. Lippard's father, along with a few other of his relatives, came to America in his youth from Kent, England. At our 2014 Lippard reunion, we were very fortunate to have a family named Lippard join us from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. They are Brian, his wife Caroline, and their son Christopher. They know that they are distantly related to Dr. Vernon Lippard. Some years ago I was also in contact with Nicola Lippard Auster of London, whose family has been in England for many generations and in earlier days also lived in Kent. Nicola thinks that there is a connection between her and Dr. Lippard's family also. Nicola's family has tracked its ancestry back to a William Lippard who was born in 1735. Both English families feel certain that their Lippards originally came from Germany to England.

How might the stories of these English/German Lippards be relevant to our family story? By the early 1700's the German areas of the Palatinate, Hesse, Alsace, and Wurttemburg (where the people were primarily Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anabaptist) had suffered from the wars, oppression, and religious persecution by the Catholic French. Especially in the Palatinate, the religious persecution was severe. Their own ruler, the elector Johan Wilhelm of the House of Newburgh, had become a devout Catholic in spite of the vast majority of his subjects being Protestants. Additionally, the winter of 1708/9 in Germany was the most severe in over 100 years. The Rhine River froze over, all the vineyards were destroyed, and the German people were starving and freezing. In England, Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne of England, who was of German extraction himself, voiced much concern for the desperate German people. As a result of his concern and England's need for Protestant settlers to people Ireland and its colonies in America, Queen Anne and the English Parliament extended an invitation to any German Protestants, especially those in the Palatinate, to immigrate to England. In the spring of 1709, approximately 7,000 desperate souls traveled down the Rhine River to Rotterdam and sailed on to London, arriving most favorable to the prospect of living in England or being sent on to Ireland or to America. Initially they lived in three tent city refugee camps just outside the city wall of London at Deptford, Camberwell, and Blackheath. Of these 7,000 Germans, nearly 3,000 soon were shipped to America, mainly to New York, and nearly 4,000 were sent to Ireland, from which many eventually sailed on to America also. By November when the number of German immigrants to England had risen to thirty-two thousand, the English government issued an edict that no more were welcome. Thus, there is the possibility that our Lippards and the English Lippards were related back in Germany.

Of course, all of us were quite eager to discover exactly where in Germany our family once lived. As I mentioned earlier, our family group who immigrated to America consisted of enough people that one would think it to be fairly easy to find them in German records. I found that several towns in Hesse such as Kassel, Eperode, Wickenrode, Gensungen, and Grossalmerode were home to families named Liphard. I kept these locations in the back of my mind. Using Gensungen as a central point, I learned that from Gensungen to Kassel it is 19.26 miles, from Gensungen to Wickenrode it is 25.1 miles, and from Gensungen to Grossalmerode it is 27.5 miles. Thus, in my searches I have concentrated on Hessian villages.

SEARCHING FOR THE LIPPARDS'
GERMANIC HOME VILLAGE(S)
DIEBURG ERROR

On Ancestry.com, a number of people have constructed Lippard family trees conjecturing that our Conrad and a Martin, born in 1680 in Dieburg, Hesse, Germany, were the same man – a Conrad Martin. Additionally, in the records we have for our Conrad, including the Queen Elizabeth ship's log, his swearing allegiance to the British government, and his Will and Estate papers, he is nowhere referred to as Conrad Martin Lippard rather than just Conrad Lippard. Perhaps the most significant evidence of this being two men rather than one is that Martin was still living in Dieburg after Conrad had already emigrated to Pennsylvania! Being born in the same or almost the same year, in Hesse, does not in any way make our Conrad and the Martin in Dieburg the same person. Thus, the evidence against our Lippards being from Dieburg is strong.

Some years ago, I rented the Church Records from Dieburg and searched them very thoroughly for Conrad, but all to no avail. I did find the Martin who has been erroneously convoluted by some researchers using apparently only secondary or made-up information rather than the primary church records. For a while I thought that perhaps I had missed the entry or entries concerning Conrad so I checked the Church Book for the second time ---still no Conrad. I fell into the trap of thinking that perhaps the "researchers" had found something I had overlooked but found that in their postings on Ancestry.com, none of them had listed any primary sources and upon my sending out inquiries learned that those who did respond to me admitted to just having copied the information in their trees from the perpetrator of the initial error or deception.

Thus, I decided to make an investment in the purchase of the official Ortsfamilienbuch (local family genealogy book) of Dieburg covering from 1603 to 1900, meticulously researched and organized by Brigitte Olschewski. I searched every Lippert entry twice, found the family of Andreas and Magdalena Bender into whose family branch Conrad supposedly fit, and discovered that his name is never mentioned. In addition it appears that all of Dieburg inhabitants well up into the 1800's were Roman Catholic, though I am certain that after the Reformation our family was not. So here again we see the great importance of using primary rather than secondary sources in all research.

THE SEARCH CONTINUED TO
MITTELHOF - GENSUNGEN, HESSE

The search for Conrad has gone on for years. Back in 1995 I was searching records at a Latter Day Saints (Mormon) genealogy library near where we lived at that time in Maryland. After many failures in searching for a Conrad Lippard in Germany born sometime around 1680, I came across a Conrad Liphard baptized on September 21, 1679, in Gensungen, Hesse, Germany. There was no additional information about him. I acquired the following address from the LDS librarian for the Protestant Church in that town.

Evangelische Kirchengemeinde
Pfarramt 1
Kirchstrasse 14
Felsberg-Gensungen
Parkstrasse 20
Gensungen, Germany

Interestingly, I sent the information I had found to Seth, and he arranged with Chip, who is fluent in German, to write to the church in Seth's name asking for a genealogist to read the church records for us in search of this Conrad and his family. Adolf Herwig, Burgermeister (Mayor) and "Kirchenaltester," sent Seth a lengthy response typed in German. He stated that the oldest church book dates from 1661, the first thirty years of which are difficult to decipher. However, he did locate an entry recording that on September 21, 1679, Johannes Frantz Liphart, a brick maker (Ziegeler) by trade, and his wife Magdalena (no surname given) had their son Johann Conradt Liphard baptized. The godfather was Conradt Seitz. A secondary source says that Frantz died 12 Dec.1715 and Magdalena died after 1715. After the Conrad Martin debacle of Dieburg, I decided to take an even closer look at this Gensungen Liphard family for any other clues we might have missed. Then Seth found access to some records in the Marburg Archives and learned the same meager bit of information about a Johan Conrad Liphard that I had found.

Unfortunately, Frantz's and Magdalena's birth or baptismal dates may predate 1661 when the first church book was begun. Brothers and sisters of both may also have been too early and or lost in the nearly indecipherable first thirty years of records. These hypotheses did not deter us from concentrating on this Conradt Liphard. What did deter us was Adolph Herwig's comment that as few further dates (marriages, deaths, etc.) for this family appear in the later church records, they seem not to be "an indigenous" family or one that instead immigrated into and later out of Gensungen from and to different locales. On that note, we felt that this probably was not our family or if so, we had no idea where the "locales" they lived in might have been. Thus, we felt as though we had hit a "brick" wall.

There is another secondary source which does state that an Anna Marie Liphard of Gensungen was born in 1652 and died in 1714. Additionally, there is another Conradt Liphard who is associated in the Gensungen records with the date July 6, 1670. The entry is nearly illegible (source Band 1, Image 17). He may be the husband of Anna Marie since this appears to be a baptismal record where he is the sponsor for a son of Jost Froh named Conradt. We could surmise that he would have been at least twenty years old or more to serve as a sponsor and thus born at least by 1650. Anna Marie is the only other Liphard of Frantz and Magdalena's generation (perhaps Frantz's sister or his sister-in-law, wife of Conradt) whom I have found any reference to, suggesting that a small Liphard family, perhaps only the two brothers, moved to Gensungen from somewhere else. Perhaps Magdalena and Anna Marie were natives of Gensungen or perhaps they were already married to Frantz and Conradt when they came to Gensungen. Our Conrad, born nine years later, may have been named for his uncle. Unfortunately, Magdalena's surname is never recorded in the Gensungen church records. However, as I will elaborate on later, there is a marriage record in 1661 for a Magdalena (with no surname). I'm also wondering if the reason Magdalena's surname is never listed is that she was a Liphard too, and the attitude was why write the same surname twice! Evidently this older Conradt and Anna Marie are not to be found again in the readable Gensungen records.

CHAPTER 3
LIPPARD ANCESTORS NEW INFORMATION AND THEORIES

Identifying the parents of Johannes Frantz Liphard and Magdalena has been very difficult for several reasons: there are so many Liphards in northern Hesse; there is so little information about any of them; and there are so few extant facts, including dates, to tie them together. I gathered crumbs from where I could – Ancestry.com, My Heritage, Family Search, Google Search, GEDBs gen.net, Klaus Kunze, "List of People from the ‘Glasmacher Kinnbuch,"etc.

In nearby Wickenrode, not far from Gensungen, many people supported themselves and their families through working as glasners (makers of glass products) or creators of clay/pottery products. I am assuming that our Frantz's making of artisan bricks would have fit into this environment. In Wickenrode lived Hans Liphard, a glasner (1611-1653). In the mid 1640's, Hans married Catherina, and they had at least two children, first Anna Liphard born in 1647 and second Frantz Liphard born in 1649. I am theorizing that this Frantz moved from Wickenrode to Gensungen and is our ancestor (Conrad's father) who married Magdalena (Conrad's mother). Also located in Wickenrode, a glasner of the previous generation (mentioned in Wickenrode records as dying 28 December 1650) is also a Liphard named Jost. My theory is that this Jost Liphard is Conrad's grandfather, the father of Hans Liphard.

Then I discovered an interesting surprise. Again not far from Gensungen and Wickenrode is Grossalmerode-Kassel, another town of pottery and glassmakers including Liphards. This was in later years the home of the Grimm brothers too. Here I found a Magdalena Liphard, supporting my earlier theory that Conrad's mother Magdalena of no last name in the Gensungen records may also have been a Liphard. Her dates (1657-1715) fit quite possibly into those we knew vaguely from the Magdalena in Gensungen.

This Magdalena Liphard's parents were her father, Jost Liphard, a different Jost from the one in Wickenrode ,described as a glasier, glazier, and village hand from Grossalmerode. He was born in 1608 and died 13 March 1678 in Grossalmerode. On 20 February 1650 he married Anna Kunkel (1620-1670 Grossalmerode). Jost Liphard's father was also named Jost Liphard). In Grossalmerode records, I found the names of three of Jost Liphard and Anna Kunkel's children -- Martha born 1651, Anna Catherine (1655-1711), and, here's the surprise – Magdalena born 1657. Their 4th child was Johan born 1660. Now that it seems apparent that Conrad's mother was Magdalena Liphard, daughter of Jost Liphard and Anna Kunkel of Grossalmerode, we turn our attention from the Liphard family of Wickenrode Frantz (son of Hans Liphard and Catherina Liphard), Conrad's male line, to the Liphard family of Grossalmerode, Jost and Anna Kunkel Liphard Thus, here we have switched over from Conrad's father's male (Frantz Liphard) line to his mother's female (Magdalena Liphard) line.

I was additionally interested in Anna Kunkel's parents' in that her father appears to be George Kunkel, born around 1590-1600 in Grossalmerode. A glasner and dorfknechter (village hired hand). Aboard the sailing ship "Queen Elizabeth" upon which in 1738 our Liphards emigrated to America, there were at least 3 Kunkel families. In all three of the ship log listings, Johannes Konkell, age 24, was in between Conrad and Wilhelm, generally regarded as indicating a kinship or strong friendship. I have found quite a few listings where Kunkels and Liphards are associated and thus conclude that these two families are related as in such cases of Jost Liphard and Anna Kunkel or where the families were friends because both were glasers or pottery makers.

Please keep in mind that putting together these ancient generations of our family is like putting together a puzzle with no picture on the box to go by.

EARLY LIPHARD FAMILIES' CHARTS #1 and #2

#1 Wickenrode Liphard Family (Johannes Franz moves to Gensungen)
Preceding Generations
Johannes Conrad Liphard Son of Johannes Frantz Liphard and Magdalena Liphard
Johannes Frantz Liphard Son of Hans Liphard and Catherina
Hans Liphard Son of Jost Liphard
Jost Liphard Son of Jost Liphard
Jost Liphard Son of ?

#2 Grossalmerode Liphard Family (Magdalena moves to Gensungen)
Preceding Generations
Magdalena Liphard Daughter of Jost Liphard and Anna Kunkel
Jost Liphard Son of Jost Liphard
Jost Liphard Son of Jost Liphard
Jost Liphard Son of ?

Anna Kunkel
Daughter of George Kunkel
(born 1590) of Grossalmerode

In the middle ages, manor lords owned the land. Laborers skilled in farming were directed by the manor lords as to what jobs needed to be done. These farmers assigned the jobs to the lower rank workers, the hired village hands, to complete the necessary farm labor. Frequently, the village hands also worked part time at other jobs learning other skills.

MAP EXCERPTS OF NORTHERN HESSEN RELEVANT TO THE LIPHARDS

According to travel brochures for the area, walking times on established hiking trails are as follows: Wickenrode to Grossalmerode 55 minutes; Gensungen to Grossalmerode 6 hours and 54 minutes; Gensungen to Wickenrode 6 hours and 31minutes; and Gensungen to Epterode 6 hours and 53 minutes.

The community centered around Gensungen is referred to as Felsburg-Gensungen and has on its banner a mountain depicted at its base symbolizing the nearby Heiligenberg mountain and castle fortified by Konrad of Mainz in 1186. Based upon what little more I have been able to find on the internet about this area, it does not appear to be a center of agriculture especially while the Liphards were there from the late 1600's at least until the mid-1750's. Adjacent to Gensungen, which celebrated its 1200th Anniversary in 1947, clusters the little village of Mittelhof. centered around or adjacent to the primary "industry" of this town of Gensungen, the very productive Gensungen Brickworks belonging to the Hessian Principality where artisan brickmakers made not "farmers' bricks" but highly crafted and manufactured bricks. It apparently included the field from which the clay bricks were cut and a large kiln or kilns to bake the bricks made on this site. In his letter Adolf Herwig comments that almost all of the Liphards living here did live in Mittelhof, with a few in Gensungen. Almost all the children he lists were born in Mittelhof, and their Liphard fathers almost all worked as Brick Makers (Zieglers), Brick Burners (Ziegelbrenners), or Stone Masons. The Brick Works existed for over 150 years with members of the Liphard family of Mittelhof and Gensungen working at these trades for at least 140 years.

Today there is a museum in Gensungen which archives the use of the clay in the area for nearly 500 years. What was it like to work at a brick producing plant in the early modern period (1500's – 1700's)? It was very physically intensive labor not unlike the jobs most people had. First the clay-like soil had to be dug up by hand using shovels, pulverized, and cleansed of rocks and other debris. Next water, sand, and straw were strewn on top of the clay. Then the Zeiglers (brick makers) using their bare feet trampled and mixed the clay, sand, water, and straw together into a pasty-like substance. They scooped the roughly hand-formed mixture into molds, sometimes coating them with sand. Next, they trimmed the bricks along the top and left them for days or weeks to dry in the sun. In the next step, the Zeiglers removed the bricks from the molds and transferred them into large kilns/ovens (Ziegelhuttes) where they were baked until well-formed and hard. Zeigelbrenners (brick burners) maintained the fires of the kilns at very high and even temperature. Most of the employees lived in the adjacent Mittelhof village, a much earlier version of the American mill village. Our Lippard family lived a very strenuous life not unlike the life Conrad chose for himself in Pennsylvania, but more about that later. Others of the Liphard clan worked in other aspects of clay product production such as pottery of all types. By the way, much of the clay in this northern Hessian area is white, not the typical red clay we think of.

Johannes Frantz and Magdalena's Children and Grandchildren

All source images or pages cited in this study were located by Harriet in the Evangelical Kirchenbuch, Gensungen, Kreis Melsungen, Film # 865109, and the Felsburg-Gensungen Kirchspiel, both dated 1661-1830. The Kirchenbuch is written in the original German of the time including German letters at times different from our letters today and very difficult to read with faded ink and ink splotches in unfortunate places. A small cross by the side of a baptismal record indicates that the baby was still-born or died soon after birth. Fortunately, there is no such cross by the birth record of this Conrad whom we now feel strongly to be our ancestor.

Adolf Herwig and Harriet searched and have listed that further children (including Conrad) of Frantz and Magdalena are as follows: (in the church records, it is not always clear whether a date associated with a baby refers to his or her birth or baptismal date).

Baptisms of Family of Johannes Frantz and Magdalena Liphard

Although Magdalena's surname is never given in the Gensungen church records, and those records begin only in 1661, the marriage of a Magdalena, no last name given, is listed as having occurred on Oct. 17, 1661 (source Band 2, Image 287). Could this be our Frantz's Magdalena? Although we do not have a child listed for this couple before 1669 (see below) others could have been born during those early thirty years of nearly illegible church records. However, Frantz and Magdalena are recorded in the Gensungen records on March 12, 1669, as baptismal sponsors for Anna Barbara Broll, daughter of Clabs and Magdalena Broll (source Band 1, Image 13).

1. Johannes, son of Johannes Frantz and Magdalena, born May 18, 1669 (source Band 1, Image 14).
2. Anna Elisabeth, daughter of Frantz Liphard of Mittelhof , born in1670 or 1671 (source Gensungen Church Records illegible). Elizabeth married on March 2, 1693 (source Kirchspiel, p.230) Johan Jost Schwander of Kassel, son of George Schwander, Burger, of Kupferschlager.
• Johannes Frantz Schwander, son of Anna Elizabeth Liphard and Johan Jost Schwander, of Ziegelhutte, was baptized April 7, 1699 (source Band 1, Image 80), sponsor grandfather Johannes Frantz Liphard.
3. Anna Catherina, daughter of Frantz Liphard, born Dec, 3 and baptized Dec. 6, 1671 (source Band 1, Image 17), Mittelhof; confirmed in 1682 (source Band 2, p.504). Anna Catharina of Ziegelhutte married in Gensungen on Nov. 10, 1692, Christoph Ellenberger of Mittelhof. (source Kirchspiel, p. 230).
4. Jacob Heinrich, son of Frantz and Magdalena, born 1673 (source Band 1, Image 21); confirmed 1684 (source Band 2, Image 224).
5. Anna Gertrud, daughter of Frantz and Magdalena Liphard of Mittelhof, Gensungen; baptized Jan. 25, 1674 (source Band 1, Image 21); died Nov. 21,1776, age 86 (source Band 2, Image 278).
6. Johann Hartmann (Brick Burner-Ziegelbrenner) son of Frantz Liphard, born Jan. 30, 1677 (source Band 1, Image.27); married Nov.24, 1701 (source Band 2, p.716-717), Anna Elizabeth Schroder, daughter of Johannes Schroder of Mittelhof at Gensungen. She died at Mittelhof in 1742 (secondary source). Hartmann died Jan. 14, 1748 (source Band B, Image 241 or Band 2, Image 369) at age 76 in Gensungen.
1. Cornelius, son of Johann Hartmann and Anna Elizabeth Schroder, was born and died March 23, 1703 (source Band 1, Image 91).
2. Magdalena, daughter of Hartmann and Anna Elizabeth, born May 23 and baptized June 3, 1705 (source Band 1, Image 96).
3. Susanna, daughter of Hartmann and Anna Elizabeth, born Aug. 20 and baptized August 25, 1705; sponsors grandparents Frantz and Magdalena Liphard (source Band 1, Image 102); died in 1783 at age 78 (secondary source).
4. Anna Margaretha, daughter of Hartmann and Elizabeth, born Oct. 24 and baptized Nov. 3, 1710 (source Band 1, Image 110); married Aug. 26, 1731 (source p .252) to Tobias Heisse, Ziegler, of Mittelhof; she died 1775 (secondary source),
5. Cornelius, son of Johann Hartmann and Anna Elizabeth of Mittelhof was born Nov. 1 and baptized Nov. 10, 1712 (source Band 1, Image 117); he was confirmed in 1728 at Gensungen (source Band 2, Image 227); he married on April 20, 1745 (secondary source) Christine Marie who was born in 1719 (secondary source). and died in 1791 at age 72 (source Band 2, Image 245). Cornelius died in 1751 (Band 2, Image 245). Johann Henrich was confirmed in 1734 (source Band 2, Image 231). Who?
1. Christoph, son of Cornelius, was born and died in 1748 (source Adolf Herwig).
2. Andreas, son of Cornelius, born Dec. 8, 1748 (Band B, Image 383).
3. Johannes Heinrich, son of Cornelius, was born and died in 1751 (source Band, Image 244).
4. Christoph, son of Cornelius, was born on Apr. 6 and baptized on April 9, 1752 (source Band B 3, Image 390),
5. Anna Gerdrutha, daughter of Cornelius, was born on Oct. 10 and baptized on Oct. 12, 1754 (source Band B, Image 395).
6. Anna Elisabeth, daughter of Cornelius, was born in 1763 (secondary source); married Feb. 8, 1782 (source p. 297) Justus Lahge of Melsungen.
7. Johannes Conrad, son of Cornelius, was born in 1766 (secondary (source).
6. Johan Casper, son of Hartmann and Anna Elizabeth; born Nov. 21 and baptized Nov. 28, 1714 (source Band 1, Image 123).
7. Magdalena, daughter of Hartmann and Anna Elizabeth; born Dec. 7 and baptized Dec. 12, 1715 (source Band 1, Image126).
8. Catherina Elizabeth, daughter of Hartmann and Anna Elizabeth; born Jan. 31 and baptized Feb. 6, 1718 (source Band 1, Image 133).
9. Maria Elisabeth, daughter of Hartmann and Anna Elisabeth; born Feb. 7 and baptized Feb. 14, 1719 (source Band 1, Image136); confirmed 1733 (source Band 2, Image 230).
10. Anna Gertrud, daughter of Hartmann and Anna Elisabeth; born Apr. 29 and baptized May 4, 1720 (source Band 1, Image139).
11. Christina Maria of Ziegelhutte, daughter of Johann Hartmann and Elisabeth, born June 9, 1721 (source Band 1, p.261); confirmed in 1735 (source Band 2, Image 231); married on April 20, 1745 (source Band 1, p.260) Christoph Pontz, Dragoner for Printz v. Sachern-Gothaischen Regiment.
12. Johann Georg, son of Hartmann and Anna Elisabeth; born Nov. 24 and baptized Nov. 30, 1722 (secondary source).
13. Anna Catherina, daughter of Hartmann and Anna Elisabeth; born about 1724; confirmed in 1734 (source Band 2, Image 231).
14. Name illegible; confirmed in 1737 (source Band 2, Image 234)

Johann Conrad's baptismal record
7. Johann Conradt, baptized on September 21, 1679 (source Band 1, Image 33), son of Johannes Frantz Liphard, a brick maker/burner (Ziegelbrenner) by trade, and his wife Magdalena (no surname given). The godfather was Conradt Seitz.

Johann Wilhelm's baptismal record
8. Johann Wilhelm, born Nov. 7, and baptized Nov 10, 1682 (source Band 1, Image 41); son of Johannes Frantz Liphard and Magdalena; confirmed 1692 (source illegible); ?died pre 1685 (source Adolf Herwig); died 19 Nov. 1682 (Band 1, Image 49).
9. Johann Heinrich, born April. 25, 1686 (source Band 1, Image 49); son of Johannes Frantz and Magdalena.
10. Johannes Michael, son of Frantz and Magdalena, born at least by 1694 (source estimate); married April 1. 1720 (source Band 2, Image 278); died Sept. 1768, age 74 (source Band 2, Image 263).

All of these children were supposedly born in Mittelhof.

Evidently Frantz and Magdalena were still living in 1699 and 1705 when they were baptismal sponsors for their grandchildren Johannes Frantz Schwander. and Susanna Liphard respectively.

After the Burgermeister passed the thirty or more years where the Gensungen church records were nearly inscrutable, he listed several Liphard men and women who were of an age that they could have been Frantz's nieces and nephews and grandchildren. There were other Liphards who continued on in the Gensungen records up until I lost track of any more of them in the early1800's. The next pertinent question here is whether or not there are still any Liphards in Mittelhof and Gensungen. According to the Pfarrar (of the Gensungen church, there are today (2020 no families of our name still living in Gensungen although there may be descendants with different surnames.

Hints That this Johann Conrad Liphard of Mittelhof, Gensungen, Hesse, Germany is Our Ancestor

Although at this point we cannot positively prove that this Conrad is our ancestor, there are hints that we have finally found our man. First, I have exhausted all records of a Conrad, born in 1679 or even 1680 in every source in books or on the web available to me as have other researchers looking for Conrad. Only this Hessian Conrad has a birthdate (September 1679) that corresponds with Conrad of the Queen Elizabeth's stating that in September 1738 when the ship reached Philadelphia, he was 58 years old.

Second, Conrad of Gensungen had a brother three years younger than Conrad (born in 1682) named Wilhelm. Adolph Herwig (source unclear) theorizes that this Wilhelm died when he was about 5 years old. I found a confirmation record in the Gensungen Church book in 1692 listing a Wilhelm Liphard. Most of the children in those records were listed at about age 10. There is no further record of this Wilhelm. Might Conrad of the Queen Elizabeth have named his oldest son Wilhelm in memory or honor of that younger brother?

Third, Conrad of Gensungen grew up in an industrial production (bricks) environment. Conrad of the Queen Elizabeth/ Pennsylvania, worked in the industrial trade of manufacturing potash with only a small record of agricultural pursuits.

To prove that the Johannes Conrad listed as the son of Johannes Frantz and Magdalena Liphard of Gensungen is our ancestor, we face another challenge. Unfortunately, the Gensungen confirmation records for the time span that should have included Conrad are missing or illegible. As a teenager or young adult, it appears that Conrad left Gensungen with his marriage and the birth of his children being in a different place or places. There are a few nearby towns that may have had industries that would have enabled Conrad to learn the art of making potash, a skill he pursued in Pennsylvania. As a reminder, some of these towns, all including people named Liphard, are Epterode, Wickenrode, Grossalmerode, and Kassel. Some people (without giving documentation) even propose that Conrad moved to Wuettemburg or the Palatinate. And there are other possibilities as well.