Conestoga Township, Lancaster, Persistence and Continuity, 1718-1726

Contents 1 Documentation 2 Introduction 3 Limitations

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Documentation

See:

Eschleman's Original paper

Eschleman's Lists for Early Lancaster County for discussion.

Index to Eschleman's Tax Assessment Lists for Lancaster County

Eschleman's Tax Assessments for Pequea Township, Lancaster County, 1720-1726

Population Volatility in Pequea Township, 1721-1726

Population Volatility in Conestoga Township, pre-1718-1826

Introduction

An analysis has been developed of the persistence of persons in Conestoga Township, Lancaster County from about 1718 to 1726, as revealed in Eschelman's tax lists (see articles above for details on these lists. Conestoga Township was established in 1718 within Chester County. Tax lists exist for the township between theyears 1718 and 1726, with the exception of 1723. Eschelman developed a listing of persons present in the area prior to 1718 (denoted "Pre-1718" in this and related articles.) These data can be used to evaluate how rapidly the Conestoga Township community was changing within this time period. To do this a tabulation of persons present in each year was created. From this we determined when each person first and last appeared in the tax lists, and when they last appeared.

Limitations

Tracing the presence of specific individuals in Conestoga Township is very depenedent on being able to recognize that entries in different years are or are not entries for one and the same person. Some names, as recorded in the tax lists, look very different, but in fact may represent the same person. Other names look very similar, but in represent different persons. This variability is due to a number of separate factors, including:

Variation in how the name was spelled by the tax collector: e.g. "John Bear" versus "John Bare"

Variation in the name given to the tax collector: e.g., "John Henry Bear" versus "Hans Bear"

Transcription errors, e.g., "John Bear" versus "John Pear".

As an elaboration, consider the following data set:

A "John Henry Bare" appears in the pre-1718 tax list. In subsequent years similarly named individuals also appear:

pre-1718 John Henry Bare

1718 Henry Berr

1719 Henry Berr (Bear)

1720 X

1721 X

1722 John Henry Bear

1724 Hans Henry Bair

1725 Henry Bare, Sr.

1726 Henry Bair

There are six different spellings in the list above, and these could reflect six separate individuals. More likely, they are all the same individual, hidden under different spelling variations of the first and last name, In some cases the individual's last name is spelled "bare", in others, "Berr", "Bear", and "Bair". Phonetically, they are all equivalent, and may represent anglicizations of the English "Behr" or even "Beyer". Added to this mix are variations in the first and middle name" "John Henry", "Henry", "John" and "Hans" (the latter being the German equivalent of "John").