Volume Number One
The German Mefferts
(Meffert, Mefferd and Mefford)
Compiled by:
Betty Lou Mefford
1985
For
distribution on the Internet.
while
enhancing readability and understanding.
Changes are
italicized or noted.
2002
This book is dedicated to Mrs. Raymond F. (Mildred) Heiden of Crystal Lake, Illinois who has been so generous
as to share her pictures of Wachenbuchen and
Others who have directly or indirectly aided me in my research:
Mrs.
Margarie Robinson in her book entitled “The Mefferds and Their Kin.”
She had done much of the early research in
Mrs.
Lula Reed Boss for her book entitled “George Mefford, Patriot (1764-1814) of
Mrs. Robert (Phylis) Mefford of
Mrs. Anita Ockert of
Registrar of Wills
of
Clerk of
LDS Library Staff
of
ANY CORRECTIONS OF ERRORS OR ANY ADDITIONS WILL BE WELCOMED BY THE COMPILER.
Editor’s Note,
Every effort has been made to
replicate Betty’s book as close to the original as possible. There were some restrictions or mistakes in
the original work that I chose to correct.
Any additions by me are in italic and are my responsibility.
Great effort was made by Betty to
place as much information as possible on a page. Many pages had margins of ¼” to ½” with
little or no paragraph breaks. This
accomplished her suspected goal, but made the manuscript extremely difficult to
read.
She also retained much or all of
the original mistakes in spelling and grammar while adding a few of her
own. Many of the legal documents
contained lengthy run-on sentences. These
were not only impossible to understand, but in a lot of instances, the initial
reading created a different impression than was received after a second or
third examination.
I therefore chose to make the following changes to open up the layout and make the book more inviting to read, as well as to clarify some of the information it contains.
1. Increased
the margin size, added paragraph and page breaks between sections. This increased the number of pages in the
book, but made it much easier to read.
2. Redesigned
the Table of Contents to conform to the new layout and increased the detail to
make specific parts easier to find.
3. Added
footnotes to explain the definitions of words not commonly used today or to
give insight to the time period or situations.
4. Inserted
obvious words that were left out or were apparent omissions by the original
author.
5. Punctuation
was added, especially to lengthy legal documents, to clarify the intent of the
authors.
6. Added
an index of names to allow researchers to find their specific ancestors.
I have tried very hard to ensure
that these changes have not destroyed the intent of the book. I have never supposed to profit from Betty
Lou Mefford’s work or glory. She, along with
the others she acknowledged, did the research for this volume of work as well
as all the original layout and publication.
As an Editor, I have only tried
create a more reader friendly work and make the information available to as
many people as possible, using tools and opportunities not available to Betty
in 1985, namely word processors and the Internet.
This work should not be sold. It is to be distributed freely as a family
history research tool.
David L. Mefford
2002