More on Eve Dorothy Yingling Dell

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?