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Archiver > NJHUNTER > 2002-08 > 1030118714


From: "msouders" <>
Subject: [NJHUNTER] Saunder?
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 12:07:50 -0400


Thanks to all - and there were many of you! - who supplied the answers to my Potterstown and "Mr. Grandine's" questions from the other day. I've gotten that all straightened out.

Although I didn't ask it specifically, I assume that "shy of the sheriff" could mean that he was ducking the sheriff? afraid of the sheriff? got nervous around the sheriff? I take it as an active verb, the way a horse shies. Anyone know differently?

My main question though, had to do with George "Saunder." I've been researching the name "Souders" for years now and half the time I find it under variants, Saunder being one of them. (Just a few weeks ago Beverly Kerby-McDonough was transcribing cemetery records to her web site and found four children named Souders who'd been indexed as Saunders - and that by the Hunterdon County Historical Society!)

Even I made an error in my first message because I didn't look and assumed that this record spelled the name Saunders with the final s. Just now I checked and find it singular, Saunder. Even more reason to believe that - in 1761 - it was a variant on Sauder, one of the original spellings. I see that Potterstown was near German Valley.

So what I was really asking was, did anyone recognize this George Saunder? Was Saunder a Hunterdon name? I know there was a James Saunders in Kingwood in 1779 from Deats' Taxpayers lists. James is a name I believe to be more English in the 18th century so I believe his name to be bona fide Saunders.

I was looking to see if this was a German "Saunder" because there was a George Sauder around that area of the time: a George Sauder and Maria Veit had two daughters baptized at St. James church (German language) near Phillipsburg in 1770 and George was a communicant there in 1771. After that, they seemingly vanished. But, it occurred to me - as that record mentioned Bethel, Lancaster Co. - that that might account for where they'd gone (or come from).

Thanks again for your imput. This list really delivers!

Marilyn

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