"Ancestrees"

Barbara UNKNOWN ^{1 2 3}

  General Notes:

We know that John's wife's first name is Barbara from the John Waginer family bible and from George Harmon's will, but there has never been any proof found that she was the daughter of George or a Harmon herself.

The Twentieth Centuries published histories of this family state that Barbara's surname was probably Harmon. According to Brad Bahler (bahler1@netzero.net), however, researcher "Terry Harmon of Boone, North Carolina wrote a massive Harmon genealogy. He (was...) twice a Mast descendant. He informed me that no North Carolina researcher in the old days (he was fortunate to have some very old genealogies) ever identified Barbara as a Harmon. In his opinion this stared with researchers in Ohio, who incorrectly remembered her as a Harmon, confusing her with John Mast and Susan Harmon."

This Harmon theory pervades many published documents. It has been stated in various sources that she was the daughter of Cutliffe and Susan Pfoutz Harmon. (C-205) This has proved to be an error in confusion as a Susan or Sarah, d. of Cutliffe did marry a John Mast. However, they were a full generation younger. Cutliffe and Susan were almost peers of our Barbara. Others have stated that she was the daughter of George Harmon (one of the 7 brothers that went to the Shenendoah Valley in the 1740's). This was based upon the fact that the administrator for his will was John Mast, called a "family friend" , and husband to Barbara. However, again there is no evidence that this Barbara is the daughter of George. 1) There seem to be no Barbara's in the naming of this families siblings in this or any close time period 2) If her husband, John Mast, was a son-in-law, wouldn't John have been called that, like son-in-law Daniel was in the will? and 3) Barbara is not named as his daughter in the will. (C-1458)

Brad Bahler does not believe she is a Harmon at all. Some researchers suspect she is a Lopp/Lapp by surname instead. This Lapp surname was a common one on the Amish Mennonite church of which Jacob and John Mast were members, whereas Harmon is not. Harmon was Mennonite and not Amish. There was a great rift between these two groups and it was extremely unusual for them to mix or marry in Pennsylvania. By the time these groups moved to places like North Carolina, as the Amish died out, they joined with the Mennonites and as the Mennonites became scarce, they joined with the Dunkards. ⁷

Barbara married John MAST Sr., son of Unknown MAST and Unknown. (John MAST Sr. was born in 1730-1740 in , , , Switzerland (Che) and died about 1800 in , Randolph, NC, USA.)