Hello, "cbannes"---
I am not related to your families, but I can see that your ancestry parallels
mine. We are both descended from the Amish.
The Boon(e) family, of which the famous frontiersman was one, were Irish
Quakers from Pennsylvania. However, they lived in the areas of German settlement,
from just west of Philadelphia (Daniel Boone was born near Reading), to
Lancaster County.
There was considerable intermarriage between these Quaker Scots-Irish, and
the Germans of the Old Order, Brethren communities. Usually, the German
religion instead of the Quaker one would become the shared faith of that couple.
I just received an e-mail from a Boone descendant, who is a Brumbaugh (also
Pennsylvania "Dutch").
Your ancestors, Boon and Cripe, and some of the other surnames I see in your
line, started out in Pennsylvania, and moved into Indiana by the 1840s.
Elkhart was a major Amish settlement area.
I have almost exactly the same history (I even have a Cripe relative
somewhere).
My mother's surname was Irvin. Irvin was Scots-Irish, from Lancaster County,
PA. However, for several generations my family intermarried with Germans of
the Brethren sects.
My g-g- grandfather, Israel Irvin, married one of the Leer family (Amish) in
Elkhart, and took up residence near North Liberty, St. Joseph Co., where there
were many other Amish farms nearby. Gradually over the generations, our
family went secular, and I only recently discovered this Amish past.
My connections with Kosciusko Co. come from my uncle's family, Tucker and
Flenar, who were farmers near Mentone and Beaverdam (but they were not Amish).
I am only beginning to research the Cripe origins, but they are not really
connected very much with my family.
Cheers,
---Bob Robertson
Napa Valley, California