Jim Baker's Page

Hi Andreas,

I have my Baden Becherers back to 1630, so we have been there for fair amount of time. A number of them came to the US in the early to mid-1800s, but they spread out so far that each group of grandchildren thought it was the only one. I have only recently found my great-grandfather's sibling's descendants. They started moving away from the farm in Pennsylvania about 100 years ago and they lost track of each other. A century later, their grandchildren are living in the same areas, but never even heard each other. It did not help that they were all named Baker, which is a very common name. If they had kept Becherer, it would have been easier.

I chose to look in Rust because it resembled where my Bakers lived in Pennsylvania. They were boatmen, on the Delaware Canal or on the Rhine; they were weavers; they were tavern keepers; they were farmers. And the family name could refer to "beaker makers" or glass makers and that was a major industry in their area of Pennsylvania. When I finally found my ancestor's records, his family were farmers, weavers, boatmen and they owned the Löwen Inn in Rust. It only took me 17 years.

I have not yet made contact with those Becherers and Schlenks still in Baden and have just started writing to the Bakers I found in America. Soon I will have to call my new found cousin Juliana and tell her I know where her Grandmother, after whom she was named, was born. I am trying to find a nice way to tell an 87 year old Franciscan Nun that her Grandmother was illegitimate and her Great-Grandparents were never married, although they had 8 kids!

JIM