I also have some circumstantial evidence to link Eve Dorothy
Dell to the family of Christian Yingling, Jr., and Susannah Lehman. First of
all, when Eve Dorothy and Nicholas Dell’s second child, John, was baptized in
1772, the godparents were John Kessler and Eve Dorothy Lehman. This Eve
Dorothy, wife of John Kessler, was the sister of Susannah Lehman Yingling.
Families at this time (especially German families) often had
family members act as godparents when their children were baptized, and the
child would often be named for the godparent. In fact, it’s very likely that
Eve Dorothy Yingling was named after her mother’s sister, Eve Dorothy Lehman.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Eve Dorothy chose her aunt and uncle as
godparents for her second child.
Another piece of evidence I have for Eve Dorothy Yingling’s
parentage is a land record I discovered years ago between Nicholas Dell and a
man named John Yingling. When I first found this record, I wondered if John was
a relative of Eve Dorothy. Now that I know a little more about the Yingling
family, I decided to dig out the old record and give it another look.
One of the known sons of Christian Yingling and Susannah
Lehman was John Yingling, who was born in 1748 and died in 1816. According to The
Yingling Genealogy, John was a prominent tanner in Westminster, which was then
part of Frederick County, Maryland.
The land record in question was from 1785. On December 13 of
that year, Nicholas Dell, cordwainer (i.e. shoemaker), leased to John Yingling,
tanner, Lot number 25 in the town of Westminster. The lot was situated on the
southwest side of Main Street and was leased to John for farming. Nicholas had
purchased this land 6 years earlier, along with an adjacent lot, number 24.
It is fairly certain that the grantor in this transaction
was the same Nicholas Dell who was married to Eve Dorothy Yingling. He is
listed in the record as a cordwainer (shoemaker). Several of Nicholas and Eve’s sons are
known to have been shoemakers, and it’s likely that Nicholas would have passed
that trade on to his sons.
The grantee, John Yingling, was listed in the record as a
tanner. It’s quite likely, therefore, that he was Christian Yingling and
Susannah Lehman’s son, John, since their son was known to be a tanner in Westminster
at that time.
I think these 2 records (the christening record and the land
record), together with the DNA evidence I discussed previously, make a pretty
strong case for Eve Dorothy Yingling Dell being the daughter of Christian
Yingling, Jr., and Susannah Lehman (and thus the sister of John Yingling). What
do you think?