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Forward
unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs." Victorian Author George Elliot, from the novel Middlemarch. On August the 31st 1785 the ship Favourit landed at the Port of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The ship was built in France in 1781 and was owned and operated by its Captain Nicholas Valance.1 Aboard the ship were 300 German immigrants. Among those from the county of Wertheim were Christopher, Catherine, Catherine and George Versch in bedstead 16.2 A number of the passengers were redemtioners who sold themselves into servitude to pay for their passage3 and the Versch family were among them. County records in Germany indicate that the Wertheimers left their homes for America on about the 15th of April 1785. Christoph Vers, as it is spelled in government records from Wertheim, requested a sale of property on the 31st of March 1785. He had only 68 Florins and wanted to go to America with his wife and two children. He had to sell his property because of debts he owed.4 The money he had certainely would not have gone far as the cost of the entire trip was frequentely in excess of 200 florins for each person over 10 years old. Perhaps as high as 170 florins for the children 5 to 10 years old. After a journey Christopher Versch of York County, Pennsylvania of 143 days the family finally arrived in the port of Philadelphia but this was just the beggining. They must have had mixed emotions as they saw land after such a long voyage. A combination of excitment and at the same time homesickness. If they ever regreted leaving home it must have been then. They were redemtioners who spent the first years in America as servants to pay for their ship passage. But they got on with life and in a few short years Christopher and Catherine had another child named Catherina who was baptised in Lancaster 22 June 1787. The Family Name: The origion of family names is often of interest, and our family name is probably very old. To start out our family name was not spelled anything like it's spelled today. Even the various english changes that were made to The name do not come close to what the name ment in Germany. For that matter, in Germany, the family appears to have spelled the name four different ways. First and most common to the Region of Wertheim the spelling was Versch. Then there was also the spelling Vers. Simularly it was spelled Fers and Fersch. If all of these are derivations of the same name in German then they all have the same meaning. Our Grandfather Christopher spelled his name Versch and yet on a Christopher Versch of York County, Pennsylvania government record from the city of Wertheim it was spelled Vers. Fersch appears to have been derived from Pfirsich or Pfersich from the Latin 'malum persicum' meaning 'peach'.5 If this is the case then the earlist people to have this name lived near peach orchards or were involved in harvesting or selling the fruit. That does not mean that our direct ancestors were involved in such things as they may have taken the name in early times simply because they liked it. Maybe they knew or worked for someone they respected so took his name. Or perhaps if we can go back far enough one of our grandfathers took his wifes family name if she had a large dowery. This was called patranomics and was very common when a wife brought most of the wealth to a marriage. There appears to be several German family names that are frequently changed to similar spelling variations in English. They are Versch, Försch, Forcht and Furst. The spelling variations of the four names in America were frequently the same, such as: Fersch, Fers, Ferscht, Forscht, Forsht, Forcht, Forst, Farst, Farscht, Farsht, Farcht, Firsch, First, Firsht, Furst, Furscht, Fursht, Furcht etc. The V sounds the same as an F in German and is sometimes interchangable. With each spelling variation in America the meaning of the name in German changed. Forcht (fear); Forst, Forscht, Forsch and Forsh (forester or dweller in the forest); Forch (fir); Furst (Prince).6
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