John's wife and four children did not travel with him in 1848. They arrived a year later on 1 May 1849 on board the same ship that had brought John. They most certainly would have joined him immediately, probably in Berks County. The couple's youngest child, Adam, was born there in September of 1850.
John Bitner remained in Berks County for almost 20 years. In 1866 he purchased a farm in Snyder County, Pennsylvania, near the shore of the Susquehanna River below Selinsgrove. We will probably never know why he moved, although we can surmise that it was to obtain more land for a cheaper price than he could find in Berks County. Nor will we know what influenced his choice of Snyder County. Unfortunately, he died just six years after he moved.
John and Anna's children eventually settled in several locations. Their daughter Elizabeth married Gottlob Schrey in Berks County, but they moved to John's farm in Snyder County after he died. George owned land next to his father's farm in Snyder County. After his early death in 1883 his family moved to the town of Northumberland. Christian settled near the Bitner homestead on the farm of his in-laws. Caspar moved his family to Akron, Ohio after 1880. And Adam traveled the farthest, leaving in the 1880s to settle in the southern part of Illinois.
In the following chapters I will discuss the ancestry of the family in Germany, followed by details of the family as they migrated from Berks County to Snyder County, and further west. I will present the descendants of John and Anna Bitner as completely as possible, based on my research and the help of numerous family members. I will also include several generations of the siblings of John Bitner who settled in Monroe County, Ohio. Documentation of several related families in Berks County and Snyder County will be included so you can see how these families are intertwined.
I have done extensive research of land records in Pennsylvania and Ohio to determine where the Bitner family lived. The book includes detailed maps to show the location of the property. Finally, I include wills, inventories, and other court records that can give us a more complete picture of the lives of these families.
Let me clarify the spelling of family names. As German families immigrated to the United States, the original spelling of their names was frequently modified to a typical English spelling of the vowel sounds. This could result in a variety of spellings. For example, you will see that the German spelling of Böttner became variously Bitner, Bittner, and Boettner, depending on the preference of the individual. In addition, members of the same family chose to spell their name differently, for various reasons. Family names can be spelled differently in various sources, such as court records, church records, tombstones, etc. I have tried to maintain the predominant or preferred spelling for each family throughout the book.
My purpose for writing this book is to document the genealogy of the John Bitner family in America and Germany. But I also want Bitner descendants to understand and appreciate the history of their family. While the Bitner family has spread across the country throughout five or six generations, they maintain a rich German heritage. I hope that I am able to convey that feeling to you in this book.