Robert Youker

Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

THE YOUKER FAMILY
Contributions from Robert Youker
e-mail: bobyouker@worldnet.att.net

With the help of David Kendall Martin's books on the Snells and the
Zimmermans I was able to trace through our Zimmerman ancestry as follows:
1. Zimmerman in Germany.
2. Johann Jacob Zimmerman born Rhine Pfalz before 1665 Died 1711 Married 16 Oct 1685 to Anna Margaretha Jung born 1667 died 1712 lived near Dunzweiler Germany emigrated to Hudson Valley NY with Palatines.
3. Jacob Zimmerman born 1690 in Germany died 1739 in St Johnsville NY
married Anna Margaretha Schutz died 1766.
4. Lawrence Zimmerman born 1720 died 1793 Married Maria.
5. Jacob Lawrence Zimmerman born 1748 killed by Indians Aug 1781 1773.
married Anna Elizabeth born 1755-60 died 1831 was private in Capt House
Company in Rev War.
6. Elizabeth Timmerman born 1772 died 1858 married 1800 to Joseph Jacob
Snell son of Jacob killed at Oriskany.
7. Daughter Betsey Snell b 1802 d 1880 Married Jacob Biddleman and into
Cramers and Blisses to Youker.

I recently had an opportunity to trace thru the Cramer line on Ancestry.com.
I was pleased to learn we go back to the orginal 1710 Palatines with Antoni
Kramer. My great Grandmother, Emogene Bliss who died in 1949 was a Cramer.
The descent is as follows:
Emogene Cramer 1846-1949
William Cramer b.1818
Peter B. Cramer 1790-1865
Zacariah Cramer 1753-1818
Johannes Cramer 1715-1775 Rhinebeck, NY
Anthony Cramer 1680-1724 Beekman,NY (Antoni Kramer immigration 1710 from
Germany)
There are many books written about the orginal Palatines who went from
Germany to Holland to England and then to Hudson Valley. Bob

Book Review
Becoming German – The 1709 Migration to New York
By Philip Otterness, 2004 Cornell University Press

The story of the Palatine migration from western parts of the Holy Roman Empire in what is now Germany to New York State starting in 1709 has been told in many books. This new book is both complete and an interesting sociological study of how the immigrants came to be “Germans” before there was a Germany! These poor people had been lured by rumors that Queen Anne of England would give them free passage and land in the New World. The rumors were false but thousands came, first down the Rhine to Holland and then across the English Channel to live in tents in Hyde Park in London before shipping to the Hudson River Valley of New York on a doomed project to prepare naval stores from northern white pine trees that don’t make turpentine!

These immigrants caused the British Colonial Authorities all kinds of problems as they settled finally in the Hudson, Schoharie, Mohawk, Raritan and Tulpehocken River Valleys. The story ends with the end of the French and Indian War in 1760. By then immigrants from many different sections of the Holy Roman Empire had become German in American by resisting British culture. The book is well written and extensively researched and footnoted. The author pulls together material from a large number of sources.

Robert Youker (with Snell and Cramer ancestors from the 1709 migration)

The Youker Reunion is always the third Sunday in August at the Firehouse picnic ground in Salisbury Center, New York.