This database is focused on the descendants of the Snell and Zimmerman families that came to New York from the Palatine area of Germany in the early 1700s and settled in or near the Mohawk Valley. (See the articles below for additional details on the German origins of these two families.) In America, the Zimmerman name was often changed to Timmerman, which is why our organization carries three family names for just two original families. Subsequent generations of these two families often intermarried. As a result, many SZT members have several ancestral lines that go back to one or more of these immigrants. Personally, I could not keep my wife’s SZT ancestors straight without the aid of a computer program. That challenge led to a broader effort to place all known descendants of these two immigrant families into one family tree or pedigree. The SZT file now contains over 49,000 names and continues to grow as new data is received.
Our initial goal was to extract all names from the SZT books authored by David Kendall Martin and Carolyn Timmerman Sidenius. (See list of books below.) These were our "gold standards." Each entry shows the name of the book (or books) in which the name was found, plus the page and entry number. We have not tried to include all of the sources cited by the authors. That information can be found in the books.
Please let the database administrator know of any errors in the database. Some may simply be the result of the tired eyes of volunteers who extracted the data. Errors of fact, if any, will be pointed out to the authors of the base publications.
We wish to add names of SZT descendants who were not included in the SZT publications. This data also should be sent to database administrator, and it will be reviewed by SZT staff. Ideally, extensive data should be sent in a GEDCOM file, but we will accept it in any readable form. Every brand of genealogy software can produce a GEDCOM file. This reduces our workload and the chance of keystroke errors. Records added to the file from non-SZT sources will show the name of the person who submitted the data.
Since this database focuses on descendants of our Snell and Zimmerman immigrants, we do not attempt to add the ancestral lineage of spouses. Otherwise the file would become far too large. However, we make exceptions in a few cases where the spouse is a descendant of another 18th century immigrant family that often intermarried with our two focus families.
Please note that the SZT publications contain birth dates, places and other personal information submitted to the organization. While we have extracted all of that data for our master file, we do not upload any personal data on living persons to the web site, for privacy reasons. Only the person's name is shown for individuals still living or who are less than 100 years of age.
Because of intermarriage, some SZT descendants were listed in more than one SZT book. We attempted to identify and merge those duplicate entries as we compiled the integrated pedigree.
However, it is not always possible to identify duplicates when persons are not clearly defined by birth date or parentage. If in doubt, we prefer to err on the side of leaving duplicate entries rather than merging the wrong people. If you find duplicate records that should be merged, please bring them to the database administrators attention. If you think we have incorrectly merged individuals who should not have been merged, please let us know. When we merged duplicate entries, we attempted to resolve any discrepancies between data found in the different books. When such discrepancies could not be resolved, we may cite the alternative data in the notes field. Thus, the data in the merged file often is more complete than that found in any one book.
Zimmerman DKM - - The 18th Century Zimmerman Family, by Martin Snell DKM - - The 18th Century Snell Family, by Martin Failing DKM - - The 18th Century Failing Family, by Martin DPAKS - - Descendants of Peter and Anna Kilts Snell, by Sidenius DHT - - Descendants of Henry Timmerman, by Sidenius DGT - - Descendants of George Timmerman, by Sidenius DLT - - Descendants of Lawrence Timmerman, by Sidenius DDT - - Descendants of David Timmerman, by Sidenius
We also added additional names collected by Carolyn Sidenius that extend SZT lineages beyond those published in her books. With the author's permission, our file also contains a few additional records from the excellent publications of Henry Z. Jones, Jr., which focus on the German origins of these two families, ie., The Palatine Families of New York, 1710, (two volumes) and More Palatine Families (one volume). They are cited as: Jones I, Jones II, or Jones III.
If you have questions directly relevant to the database or wish to correct or add information, please contact the databas administrator, Kevin Jorrey at: kjorrey@yahoo.com
Questions about the Snell-Zimmerman-Timmerman Reunion, Inc. and its activities should be directed to one of the SZT staff/officers whose names and email addresses can be found on the site's Officers page.
