GROFF Families

Graf, Graff, Groh, Groff, Grove

Germany and Pennsylvania

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I have little research on my Fronica GROFF who married Peter EIKENBERRY of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Wayne Lucore has her family tree on his Rootsweb WorldConnect GedCom with her mother Barbara Brackbill which is different than Dwayne Wrightsman's Maria Kauffman supported by Jacob's will, deeds, and estate papers. Some discussion on Rootsweb Brethren List implies the family should be easy to find there. Another discussion on Fronica originating from Saint Verena, patroness of Zurich, Switzerland, which would fit as husband Peter was of German ancestry. Jacob died May 6, 1776 and wife Maria June 19, 1772 listed in the deaths of the Registers of the Ephrata Community and the Google book version. Jacob "was listed by two German Lutheran clergyman among the Palatines who came to England in 1709."

According to The Groff Book: Volume 1: A Good Life In A New Land page 31 the clock at Winterthur Museum "The Story of Winterthur's Jacob Graff Clock" made by Jacob Graff is likely an unnamed grandson of Hans Groff who lived in Philadelphia from 1704-1715 and likely had contacts in Germantown where a grandson could have served a clock maker apprenticeship, although unlikely a son of this Jacob Groff as the book supposes since Dwayne Wrightsman shows my Jacob died in 1776 not 1740 as the Groff Book states.

 

 

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Zoom to 50% to read about Hans Groff in the book History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Father Hans GROFF will was November 7, 1738 in Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the township named for him, died in 1746 on his 1,500 acres of land near Groffdale. 1661-1746 Hans Groff is mentioned in the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online and as Hans GRAFF in the 1872 A Biographical History of Lancaster County...by Alex Harris. He is described as the pioneer settler of Earl Township with his early life discussed in History of Lancaster by Dr. Frederick Klein, 1924. Hans Groff bought land in 1704 and sold his 175 acres in Cresheim "in the Germantownship", now Mount Airy section of Philadelphia in 1715 to Gerhard Rittinghuysen.

Catherine GROFF/GRAFF was the second wife of Henry LANDIS and is likely related.

Dwayne Wrightsman wrote Fronica was the daughter of "Jacob Graff (1699-1776) of the Ephrata Community," in his article MENNONITE FAMILY HISTORY, April 2009, pp. 74-80, has the documentation and details referencing the The Groff Book, Vol. II: A Continuing Saga (Ronks, PA: Groff History Associates, 1997) by Jane Evans Best and Richard Warren Davis.

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