Hunsberger David

Description

In 1922, the first documented reunion of the Hunsberger family took place at Mount Gretna, Pennsylvania, USA, with 60 persons present. The idea of formalizing an association came to fruition soon thereafter in 1925, when bylaws and a constitution were adopted, creating the Hunsberger Family Association. The Association named as its historian Byron Keyser Hunsberger. He contacted the US Consul in Bern, Switzerland, to inquire about the origins of the Hunsberger name, and eventually visited Switzerland in 1938. One source put the earliest mention of the Hunsberger name in the year 1295. Another source suggested the family could have come from the hamlet of Hunsperg, northeast of Bern in the vicinity of Krauchthal, although no connection could be established with the Hunsbergers in America. In 1941 Byron K. published a 750-page book entitled THE HUNSBERGERS, in which he traced most of the known Hunsbergers in America back to three brothers who first appear in 1720 in the records of Franconia, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA. A noteworthy feature of this genealogy was its innovative family numbering scheme, giving members of each generation a digit appended to the father's number, indicating birth order. The numbers 1, 2, and 3 are given to the original Hunsberger brothers; their children have numbers such as 21, 22, 31, and 32; and the grandchildren are given numbers such as 211, 212, 213, and so forth. The tenth child in a family is represented by the letter "J", and the 11th by "K", etc. The letter "O" is skipped, since it looks too much like a zero. The largest documented Hunsberger family goes to "Q" -- indicating 16 children. Another feature of the 1941 book of the Hunsbergers was a family crest conceived by Byron K. Hunsberger and drawn at his request by an artist. Having found no authoritative family crest in his research, Byron K. chose a bear and mountains to represent the Bern area of Switzerland, and sheaves of wheat to depict the farming occupation of the early Hunsbergers.

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