Not So Wordless Wednesday: Adam Hacker, 1810 Census

There’s something so ironic about Adam Hocker’s 1810 census enumeration from Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. If I’m identifying the people correctly, the Christopher Ernst listed just after him is a relation by marriage to my Hoover ancestors who’d lived in Derry Township about 50 years earlier.

Christopher Ernst was the son of Johan Wilhelm and Eva Catharina (Bach) Ernst, formerly of Cocalico Township, the same place Adam was born. After Wilhelm’s death in 1750, Eva Catharina (Bach) Ernst married Michael Huber of Derry Township. They lived in Derry Township in the late 1750s, early 1760s, about the same time as my presumed ancestor Michael Huber (no known relation).

Christopher Ernst’s sisters Elizabeth and Catharina married Hoover brothers Jacob and Casper, sons of my presumed ancestor Michael Huber. Their older brother was George Hoover, of  Dauphin, Bedford, Westmoreland and finally Armstrong counties. Several of George’s daughters were born in Derry Township in the early 1760s. I believe I’m descended through George’s great grandson Christian Hoover.

The two families weren’t united in my ancestry until 1941 and yet this census shows two members of the families living in close proximity—if not next door to each other—in 1810, 130 years earlier!