This section is devoted to problems deemed too complex for the main text, and for genealogical problems that are ongoing and still, as of this date, not solved.

The relationship of the families to each other and the manner in which the property was passed on at Elvik is quite complex, and so will be dealt with here rather than in the main text. In Norway a farm with a location name like Elvik or Otterstad was called a gard or garden, meaning estate or main farmstead. If it was subdivided into smaller farms, one of these smaller farms would be called a bruk. If there were several bruks, each one would receive a number. Elvik appears to have been a single unit until the mid 1700's. In 1742 it was inherited by Olav Olsson. Olav married Anna Olsdatter (her origin is not specified in the bygdebǿk.) They had two daughters, Brita and Marie, but no surviving sons. Olav died in 1756, and the land was divided, so that Anna received half of it and the two daughters shared the other half. Brita died at age 20 without marrying, and Marie received her share, so now owned half. Marie married Johannes Nilsson Leiro and they lived at Leiro. Marie died in 1797. Their oldest son, Olaf, inherited the farm at Leiro, but the second son, Nils Johannesson, who was born in 1791, got the land at Elvik. He moved there (bruk 2 at Elvik) to take possession in 1805 at the age of fourteen. Some time before 1818, he married Marie Eiriksdatter Eide. These were Nels Elvik’s grandparents. Anna Olsdatter remarried to Jakob Johannesson Straume and they owned bruk 1. Their daughter Brita, born in 1757, married Gudmund Jakobson Kaland, and they leased the farm until Brita’s brother, Olav Jakobson Elvik, (his name would have changed from Straume to Elvik) acquired ownership in 1791. Bruk 1 descended through this family through the time that Nels Elvik emigrated. So the families living at bruk 1 and bruk 2 at the beginning of the 1870s were half second cousins. Both of these branches descend from Anna Olsdatter.

When George Chappell bought fifty acres of land from Luke Moseley in Princess Anne County, Virginia in 1722, it was the first documented proof of our Chappell ancestors in America. However, the line in America almost certainly dates back much earlier than that. The earliest known Chappell in America was Bennett Chappell who was a member of an English exploratory expedition in 1585. They were searching for a place for the English to establish a permanent colony. Since this was a part of the continent that was also being claimed by the Spanish, it had to be out of the plain sight of passing Spanish ships. The place they decided upon was Roanoke Island, just inside of North Carolina’s outer banks. They returned to England. The permanent settlers arrived in 1587. Another ship with supplies for the colony was scheduled for the following year. The next year, 1588, however, was the year the English had to fight off the Spanish Armada and the resupply was delayed another two years. When they did finally return, almost all traces of the colony had disappeared and they have forever after this been known as the Lost Colony.

Familysearch.org has a listing for a son, John, sired by Bennett Chappell in 1600. There were two John Chappells known to have settled early on in the Virginia Colony. One was the captain of the ship Speedwell which made a trip to Virginia in 1635. It has now been established that he was the father of Thomas Chappell who settled in Prince Charles City County in 1635. This John Chappell traces back to Nottinghamshire in England. Bennett Chappell was from around London, and also this John Chappell was too old to be the son of Bennett. The other John Chappell also arrived in Virginia in 1635, settling in Warwick County which is the present day city of Newport News. He was thirty-eight years old.

Phil E. Chappell published a book in 1895 on the history of the Chappells in America. He listed eight original settlers which he obtained from Hotten’s List of emigrants from England who had to sign an oath of allegiance before departing. The Chappells he identified were George Chappell who arrived in Massachusetts in 1634, Andrew Chappell who came to Maryland, also in 1634, John Chappell who settled in Warwick County, Virginia in 1635, Thomas Chappell who came to Charles City County, Virginia also in 1635, John Chappell who was captain of the ship, Speedwell, Joshua Chappell who reportedly died sailing between the Caribbean Island of Barbados and America, a John Chappell who was a prisoner on Barbados and who subsequently sailed for America, and Jonah Chappell, an English immigrant also on the island of Barbados, who may later have come to Virginia. I have since found eleven more Chappells who immigrated to Virginia before 1700, most of whom were indentured servants.

Phil Chappell identified different areas where the various Chappells settled. He called the Chappells who descended from the Warwick County John Chappell the Tidewater branch. He felt that all of the Chappells in that area descended from that person. However, I have since identified an indentured servant, Robert Chappell, who arrived there in 1642. So the Tidewater Chappells probably all descend from one of these two men.

Florence Guttery, in her book about the early Chappell family in America states that this family lived in the Tidewater area of Virginia for several generations and around 1720 began to move further south, first to around Norfolk and then into northern North Carolina, and specifically to Perquimans County. It was precisely that time that our George Chappell appears in Princess Anne County. Princess Anne is the county between the ocean and Norfolk and today is the city of Virginia Beach. The route between Warwick County and Perquimans County would go through Princess Anne County, because the route further west would go directly through the Dismal Swamp.

So although there is currently no direct proof of our ancestry beyond this George Chappell, it would appear to be very probable that he was part of this Tidewater branch. The first evidence of Chappells in Perquimans County was Richard Chappell who received land there as a gift in 1728. I think it is possible for him to have been a brother or possibly a cousin of Richard. There was a Jonas Chappell who lived in Princess Anne County in the 1690’s, but he died about 1704 without leaving any descendants. He may have been the Jonah Chappell mentioned above who lived on Barbados.

Whether or not the John Chappell who settled in Warwick County in 1635 was the son of Bennett Chappell is completely unproven. It is mentioned here only as a possibility. There is the problem of the age differential. The age of the immigrant was given as thirty-eight, but Bennett’s son was born in 1600 which would have made him only thirty-five in 1635. However, in dealing with old records such as these, minor differences in age crop up frequently. It would be completely believable that the son of one of the original explorers would return as a settler. In fact the current investigation of the Lost Colony involves comparing surnames of early Virginia settlers with those who were in the Lost Colony and comparing their DNA with the descendants of the Indian tribes in the area, under the assumption that some of the colonists were absorbed by these tribes and that other relatives of these colonists were among the early settlers in Virginia.

There could be, of course, other explanations. Others that come to mind would be that we could be descended from Chappells who settled in Isle of Wight County, which is west of Norfolk, or we could be descended from one of the immigrants who originally came to Barbados, such as the John Chappell who was a prisoner there. I think it could be possible that he could have been related to Jonah Chappell who was known to have been on Barbados. As mentioned above there was a Jonas Chappell in Princess Anne County who could have been that same person or possibly a descendant.

Ross Chappell has also injected an interesting point. It's certainly possible that the above Jonas Chappell could have been the father of George Chappell. Jonas Chappell died intestate in 1704. His meager estate was settled in favor of one Mary Woodhouse because of statements he made before his death. One explanation for this could have been that she could have been the mother of his out of wedlock child.

Notes on Barnes Genealogy

Where in Germany Michael was born and to whom has long been a question that is a source of frustration for those of us doing the searching. This long and complicated story has been painstakingly researched by Donna Gibson and this has gone a long way towards clarifying this situation and it is due to her efforts that the information that follows has been found. It appears to be certain that he is the Michael Brown on the passenger list for the St. Andrew Galley which sailed from Rotterdam to Philadelphia in 1737. We know from the date on his tombstone that he was born January 15, 1724 and so would have been only about 13 years old in 1737. Generally, only males aged 16 or older were put on these lists, so there was probably some sort of special circumstance involved. The evidence seems to point to the fact that he was an orphan and was the only male on board with that surname. Evidence also seems to point to the fact that he was travelling with the family of Wilhelm Ohler with whom he may have been serving as an apprentice blacksmith. The Ohler family appears in the 1730’s in Meckenheim, Germany, which is about 10 miles west of Mannheim in the Rhine Valley. Wilhelm Ohler married his wife, Ursula, in nearby Friedelsheim, Germany in 1734. He was a master blacksmith in Friedelsheim records and later in America Michael Brown worked as a blacksmith, so the supposition that he was an apprentice appears to be logical. There may have been other ties between Michael and the Ohler family. A record found in York County, Pennsylvania indicates that Wilhelm Ohler had been a sponsor for a child, Hans Michael Braun in 1735. Michael would have been at the correct age for this to have been a reaffirmation of faith done at the time of his confirmation.

Johan Peter Ohler, the older brother of Wilhelm, was the first Ohler to emigrate. He came to America on the Thistle of Glasgow in 1730. His brother Wilhelm came in 1737 on the St. Andrew Galley, the same ship as Michael Brown. Church records show Peter Ohler in Hanover in York County, PA in 1742. Land records in 1747 show the Ohlers in what is now Adams County, Pennsylvania near the community of East Berlin, which is just west of the York County line. Michael Brown is found in the records of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Brickerville, about a dozen miles north of Lancaster, Pennsylvania on January 26, 1745 when he married Anna Juliana Karger. The events leading up to these circumstances are unknown. The extended Ohler family can be found from this point on in Adams and Somerset Counties in Pennsylvania and later on in northern Maryland.

How and why Michael became associated with the Ohlers is unknown. The following information may shed some light on it, but all of the facts still haven’t been completely assembled. On July 8, 1721 there is a marriage in the Friedelsheim records between Michael Braun of Boutsweyer (?Butzweiler)¹⁷⁷ and Agnes Seifelds¹⁷⁸ from Switzerland. Between 1721 and 1735 there were 4 children born. The 2nd born was Conrad, born 21 March 1723. He could possibly be the Conrad Brown with whom our Michael Brown later had money and land deals in Lancaster County, PA. He was also suspected of being Michael’s brother by some researchers. The 3rd born on these records isn’t recorded until 1732, which leaves a gap of nine years, which leaves the possibility that the family could have lived elsewhere during that period. There are then two more births recorded in 1732 and 1735. On June 19, 1735 there is a son, Johann Wilhelm Braun, born whose baptismal sponsors are Wilhelm and Ursula Ohler. So there appears to have been some tie between the families but just what sort of connection is still not known. Also it isn’t known what, if any, relationship this Michael Braun family had with our own, but given the connections with the Ohler family it is very likely they were related. The baptismal sponsorship by the Wilhelm Ohlers of a child who was given the name (Johann Wilhelm Braun) is strongly suggestive of a close tie. For instance Ursula could possibly have been Michael Braun’s sister. To connect the Wilhelm Ohlers to our family tree a supposition would have to be made that during this family’s absence from the Friedelsheim records (1724-1732) that at least two more children would have been born (Michael and his sister Elizabeth) while the family lived elsewhere.       

There is a second line of inquiry. There is family lore handed down in some of Michael Braun’s descendants that trace his ancestry back to Johan Jacob (1680-1725) and Verena Agnes (1680-1730) Braun. They list three children born to them in the village of Niedermohr, which is about 30-40 miles west of Meckenheim. The church records are found in the nearby town of Glan Munchweiler and show the births of Johann Stephan Braun in 1703 and Maria Catarina Braun in 1707. Another child, Abraham, born in 1704 doesn’t appear on these records but other family lore has set his birth date as 1704. Stephan marries and moves to Ruschberg, about twenty miles to the northwest and in 1738 he immigrates to America on the Glasgow. Abraham is married in 1723 to a woman named Anna Margaretha (Margaret), who may have been his cousin, in Offenheim, which is a village about 15 miles northwest of Worms. In this scenario, Abraham and Margaret are said to be the parents of our Michael. Margaret died in 1731 and Abraham remarried to a woman named Maria Catarina. Abraham died in 1734 and so when Michael emigrated in 1737 he would have been accompanied by his stepmother, Maria Catatrina. This scenario would indicate that Michael would have spent his early years in Offenheim and would be in agreement with what was later recorded by his grandson, Robert Safford Bickel, in the History of Kanawha County in which it was stated that his grandparents came from the area around Worms on the Rhine River. Abraham’s alleged stepmother, Maria Caterina, later appears in the records of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania where Michael is married in 1745, and so she could also have been on the St. Andrew Galley with Michael. Women were not listed on that passenger list.

These are two different scenarios. At present the first scenario would appear to be the most likely, since we know Michael was associated in some way with the Ohler family before he emigrated. There are still some loose ends that need to be tied up. Michael’s actual birth record has still never been found.

The question of whether John Wise is the son of Philip Wise has plagued the investigation of this part of the family tree since the project began. The problem has centered around the fact that no birth record has been found for John, and there is family lore that was handed down that John’s son, Henry, my great grandfather, was descended from the Wise family from Accomack County, Virginia which produced Governor Henry Alexander Wise. However, recent discoveries, as related in Chapter XI, have made it almost certain that John was indeed the son of Philip. The circumstances surrounding the marriage of John to Jane MacMillan is the strongest evidence I have found. Jane’s father, George MacMillan, and John’s alleged father, Philip Wise, were only twenty-three names apart on the 1800 census of York County. This would indicate that the families lived close to each other and no other Wise families appear on either the census or the property records in that area.

There are actually three more pieces of evidence any one of which, if found, could wrap this up completely. These pieces would be the finding of Philip or Mary Wise’s probate records in Belmont County, DNA testing, and finding John’s birth record. When the Philip Wise family moved to Chester County about 1784, they had moved to an area where there were no German Reformed churches. This was in the southern part of the county, where there had been very little German settlement. The nearest German Reformed church would have been Zion Reformed Church in New Providence, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and the records there do not have any information on the Philip Wise family. The early German Reformed Church in America struggled to obtain and retain clergy, and often they worked in cooperation with the like minded Calvinist Presbyterians. Oxford Presbyterian Church was nearby to where they lived in Chester County and later in Ohio the family had become Presbyterian. We could then surmise that they probably attended this church in Chester County. Unfortunately the church records there for the years 1775-1839 were destroyed by fire.

Many of the same problems that came up in our family also came up in the family of Samuel Wise. Information from cemetery and census records indicate that he was born in Pennsylvania in 1797. Like John, no birth record has been found and there was family lore that he was descended from the Accomack County Wises of Virginia. The following are the reasons I think Samuel was the son of Philip and Mary Wise:

1. Throughout his life he lived in close proximity to the Philip Wise family, first in Pennsylvania, then in Belmont County, Ohio, and then in Delaware County, Ohio, where his sister Catherine settled and where some of the children of his brothers John and George settled.
2. He is listed among Philip’s children in the article by Mayme Robinson as recorded in Centennial History of Belmont County.
3. At least one other Belmont County source lists him as Philip’s son.
4. Samuel named one of his sons, Philip.
5. Although neither of Samuel’s wives, Anna Nesbit and Susanna Campbell, were of German descent, a very German given name shows up in the children: Christianna, a rather unusual name, and which was the same name as the wife of the George Wise who lived in Chanceford Township, York County.
6. The complete absence, except for the family lore, of any evidence that has come to light connecting him to the Accomack County Wises.

The only individual who originally fit the criteria for Hans Ona on the Ellis Island records is one Hans Lien from Romsdal, Norway, who immigrated to the United States in 1901. His birthday (1883) and origin (Romsdal) fit. Three of Hans’ siblings in Norway had taken the surname, Lien. Hans Lien came to America on the Teutonic from Liverpool, England. His destination in America was the farm of Lars Knutson in Odebolt, Iowa, a small town in the west central part of the state. The 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses asked for the year of immigration and the 1910 census listed it as 1905. The 1920 census lists it as unknown, and the 1930 census lists it as 1908 while listing Gudrun’s immigration as 1911 (it was actually 1908). When Gudrun came to America in 1908, Hans was living and working with the Herman Knutson family in Nelson County, North Dakota. This was the same surname as the family in Iowa where Hans Lien lived initially. This, however, proved to be wrong. Hans’ naturalization papers showed his immigration to be 1905. His name had been inappropriately listed as Hans Andreas Jemen on the Ellis Island records. Apparently the n-s in Jensen had been interpreted as m because of faulty handwriting. A search of the ship’s passenger list solved the problem. He had arrived on the Majestic from Liverpool and apparently went right to the Herman Knutson farm in Central Township, Nelson County, North Dakota.

Hans’ brother, Ludvig, travelled from Norway to America with Gudrun on the Majestic from Southampton, England. His name on the Ellis Island records is recorded as Ludvik Jensen. The year was 1908. Another brother, Nels, immigrated in 1913. His name on the Ellis Island records is Nels Ona. The dates on the Ellis Island records should be accurate. The data from the census records has to be taken with a grain of salt, since the census taker is just asking for the person involved to recall the date from memory.

In Robert Safford Bickel’s 1890 biographical sketch, there are five children mentioned as being born to Jacob and Catharine Bickel. These are Michael, James, Mary, Frederick and Anthony. Christina is not mentioned. Baptismal records for Christina and Mary have been found in the records of Salem Lutheran Church in Killinger, Pennsylvania and there are later marriage and census records that verify the existence of Michael, Frederick and Anthony. There has never been any other record found for James. James, however, is a common nickname for Jacob amongst Germans. This might have been what he was known as to avoid confusion because of having the same name as his father. Some accounts from Preble County, Ohio identify a Jacob Bickel married to Susannah Locke (Lock in some sources) in Augusta County, Virginia in 1794. The marriage record in Virginia, however, identifies the wife as Susannah Loucks. Our Jacob and Catharine Bickel were living in Augusta County at that precise time and so it is reasonable to assume this marriage involved their son, James (Jacob).

It has been speculated by one Bickel researcher that Christina may indeed have been Maria Christina and therefore may have been known as Mary to her siblings, and that the Anna Maria born in 1780 may have subsequently died in childhood. If so this would resolve the discrepancy in Robert Safford Bickel's biography. Christina later married Henry Castle (Cassell) in Wythe County, Virginia in 1797. Henry and Christina Castle moved from Wythe County, Virginia, to Preble County, Ohio, sometime before 1820. Subsequently there was a Jacob and Susannah Bickel who settled on a farm in Preble County about four to five miles from the Castle family.

There was a Jacob Bickel born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania in 1777 and married to a Susannah Wilhelm. This family settled just across the county line in Montgomery County, which is just east of Preble. This Jacob died in 1844. Because property records for this couple do not contain Susannah’s maiden name they apparently became misidentified as the Jacob and Susannah Bickel from Augusta County, Virginia. However, I believe that Jacob Bickel and Susannah Locke (Loucks) actually settled in Preble County about 4-5 miles from where Jacob’s sister, Christina Castle, settled and where they are identified by property records.

The numerous Bickels, including several Jacob Bickels, who subsequently appeared in this area, have therefore become difficult to sort out. Present day descendants of a Bickel line there trace their ancestry back to Bickels who lived in Centre County Pennsylvania. There was speculation that a Jacob Bickel from Centre County moved to Virginia and married Susannah Locke and then moved on to Preble County. However, it has since come to light that the marriage record in Augusta County actually reads Susannah Loucks and not Locke or Lock. Our Anthony Bickel’s brother, Frederick, was also married to a Loucks (Elizabeth), so there appears to be a connection between these families. In addition the surety on the Jacob Bickel/Susannah Loucks marriage was one John Allison. Susannah Loucks father, George Loucks was married to a Susan Allison. In 1796 Jacob and Catharine Bickel, the parents of James, bought farmland in Augusta County from this John Allison. Also Jacob and his sister, Christina Castle, are buried in the same cemetery in Preble County, so several direct connections between the families have been established and the speculation that a Jacob Bickel moved here from Centre County, Pennsylvania and then moved on to Preble County, Ohio appears to have been just an attempt to piece unrelated bits of information together, without any actual proof.

My own interpretation of this data is that our James is actually the Jacob Bickel who married Susannah Locke/Loucks in Augusta County, Virginia in 1794 and who then moved to Preble County. The Jacob Bickel married to Susannah Wilhelm would belong to another Bickel line in the Preble County area. The occurance of two Jacob and Susannah Bickel couples probably has accounted for at least some of the confusion.