Sabrina,
All I know about Susannah and John's family was that census listing
in 1860. However, we have traced the Lawrences back to the immigrant
ancestor who started out as Johan Philip Lorenz and became Philip
Lawrence, Sr. who settled in Western Pennsylvania. Indian problems came
along and they went south down the Shenandoah Valley for some years. In
fact, Philip, Sr. is supposed to have married Susannah Funkhouser in
Virginia, and their first children were born there before they came back
to Pennsylvania. Philip, Sr. died about 1799 and his probate was in
Allegheny County, for Beaver Co wasn't formed until 1800. Their later
records are in Beaver Co PA. There was a large family of children, and
we are descended from Philip Lawrence, Jr. who appears to be one of the
youngest. Only the youngest George was a minor at the time of the
probate, and few of the probate records can be found, so he is the only
proven descendant of the whole family. It seems that Isaac and
Valentine, two of the oldest children, were in the Revolutionary War and
were captured. They were marched through the part of Indiana where
Dearborn and Franklin Counties are located, and they agreed if they ever
got back home they were going to move there--and they did. Isaac is
written up in the history book for Dearborn Co as bringing over a
hundred of his descendants, including, his children, their spouses and
their children! More people are hunting descendants of Isaac and
Valentine than we find looking for Philip, Jr, but I have located some
of them. A descendant of Isaac has been putting together a listing of
Lawrence descendants and I think the last count I heard he had over
eight thousand! If you want to put your family on his list I will see
whether he is still taking people--he is wanting to publish. Also, they
have gone back several generations into Germany. The last time he wrote
me he said that he had added 1600 descendants of Catherine--one of the
daughters we had nothing on!
I should add I also had the same problem of not knowing my
Margaret's surname until one day I was volunteering in our local library
genealogy section and a young man came in and looked at some books.
When I asked who he was looking for he pulled out a chart on the
Lawrences and it showed my Margaret on it! Guess that is one of those
serendipty moments we hear about!
I'll look forward to hearing from you.
Marian Ray Dunlap
Yes!!!!
John and Susannah had a daughter, Elisabeth, who married Heinrich "Henry"
Wolf who was my great great grandfather.
I had found Mary C. on the 1860 census, but I had been unable to find the
name of her husband. This is great!
Sabrina