As a newly appointed trustee of the Apgar Family Association, I now have the inside scope on what's up regarding our revolving family patriarch.

When in 1895, Theodore Chambers published his book, "Early Germans of New Jersey", a solid starting point for anyone researching ancestors in north-western New Jersey, he designated Johannes Adam Ebert as the patriarch of the family.

But since Johannes Adam didn't arrive until 1749, early Apgar researchers determined that he could not have fathered a number of the children known to have been born in New Jersey before that date. And so, in their first published history, they selected Johannes Peter Apgard, who arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Hope in 1734, as the patriarch of family.

But still, something was missing. To have fathered such a large family, why weren't there any records in New Jersey that mention him? More recent Apgar researchers decided to explore German records; and even traveled to Germany.

What they found was that Friedrich "Fritz" Ebgert was the father of the presumed oldest sons: Herbert and John Peter. They were born in the Westerwald village of Niederdreis, in 1732 and 1735, and baptized in the Reformed Church at Puderbach, as Johannes Herbertus and Johannes Petrus respectively.

It is still not know if Fritz was the father of all 12 children; further research may still show that Johannes Peter is the father of some of them. It is also possible that he will turn out to be a brother to Fritz, supporting the old Apgar legend that "two brothers came to America".

This section of my web-site will eventually be retired as the information will be migrated into the Apgar Family Association's web-site. Since I am now the webmaster, it only makes sense that I make updates to only one Apgar site. I have also chosen not to make any updates to this site, except for this home page. Therefore, Johannes Peter will still appear as the patriarch.

Until that happens, the information here was transcribed, by me, from the first edition of JOHANNES PETER APGAR and his descendants, Volume 1 and Volume 2, Part 1 (Herbert, Heinrich, John Peter). While I did spend time proof-reading my work, there may still be some mistakes.

So if you notice something that I missed, don't hesitate to email me at apgars@familyhistorians.net