| Notes |
- BIOGRAPHY:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mstone/kgbook1.html
The cabinetmaker who would sign his formal name as John Jacob Kreischer in America was born (see birth registration ) Johann Jacob Kreischer at 11 o?clock on the morning of 5 July 1849 (a Thursday) in the home of his parents in the tiny farming village of Kirrweiler. This village lay southwest of the larger towns of Grumbach and Lauterecken, and north of the Glan River, all in the distinctive region of southwest Germany called in English the Palatinate, or Palatine, or the Pfalz (Pfälz in German). He was known among his German acquaintances by what we in America today would call his middle name (as was the naming custom among many Germans) of Jacob (pronounced in German, YA-cub; the surname Kreischer in German means one who cries, shrieks, screeches, or shouts). As an adult he was of slender build and medium height (5 feet 8 inches tall), with ?bluish? eyes, blond hair, a light complexion, prominent ears and a ?pointed? nose and ?spare? face that in later photographs would reveal a quick intelligence and knowing humor. He was the third of eight children born between 1845 and 1860 to Philipp Kreischer, a farmer (himself born 4 November 1817 in Merzweiler), and Maria Catharina (Allman) Kreischer. The circumstances of the family as Jacob was growing up, and the relationship between them when he left have not yet been discovered and maybe never will be. He no doubt received the standard elementary education available to all the village children at that time and so could read and write, and in some fashion he learned the trades of cabinetmaking (?joining?), carpentry, and farming.
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1849 - 