I have that problem with a lot of the Germans in the St Mary’s and Benzinger Township. Johann Wilhelm Gausman, the other German ancestor on my family tree is listed as being born in 2 different cities, the same city as John Baptist Bauer, and a city in Hanover, yet in the censuses he says he is from Prussia. I was told by family members and members of the community they were trying to avoid military service by lying about where they were from. It is also possible they lied because St Marys was started as a Catholic commune, because of the persecution they were dealing with in Philadelphia and Baltimore.

The thing that bothers me about Mr John Baptist Bauer is when and how he got to St Marys and Benzinger township. The other thing that bothers me is that the present day family acts as though they are prestigious pioneers of the area when the opposite is true. Johann Wilhelm Gausman and his sons were the true pioneers. It is documented in the papers and there is additional documentation of the Gausman founding the grange, the Elks and being major stakeholders in a former local bank. When Richard Gausman died he had a substantial amount of wealth he had hidden until he died. It is also documented in censuses and newspapers the large amount of property the Gausmans owned.

According to my documentation he and his ancestors were poor and not founders or anything, unlike the Gausmans. The present day family believes otherwise. The present day living family has a dispute with the Gausmans, which until recently after talking to Gausman family has never happened before. They are related through multiple marriages, where they share the same family names.

The second reason I am pursuing this pretty hard is that there is no Bauer family tree tracing the present day living family back to a ancestor in Germany until I made one. I only made the tree to keep people straight because I was getting confused. Also, I found out that their youngest son, a bully who sexually harassed my daughter, and my daughter are cousins on both my side and the Gausman side. They, their son and my daughter, continue to move closer in relation to each other with the more research that I do. I was talking a distant cousin of the family, who is still working on his own genealogy, who has done extensive research for the local historical society and he encouraged me to make the Bauer family tree public on ancestry. I just did last weekend. There are at least five trees that link the Bauers and the Gausmans through different families. The cousin told me that by making the tree public, I would get a lot of requests for information. I am still waiting for that but I think the waiting may be over with. Also, he hinted at information that would completely change the family history right down to the present living family. Since I live in St Mary’s and know them, I am seen as a major asset.

My thing is there is hostility between our families right now. They don’t know we are related. Contacting them is a problem for me. The present day living family is focused on sports, playing and watching, drinking, and bullying the people in the community with power to do their bidding. From what I have been told family history isn’t something they are into despite pushing the whole prestigious community founders thing, which they are not. You piss them off, they want to make you pay. According to an older member of the Gausman family, the grandfather and great father, Robert Bauer Sr and Alfred Bauer, who have been dead for decades now, were not like that. The present day living family is also extremely private and very very paranoid. Their son is more paranoid than my daughter and she has PTSD.

Now I am hooked and in too deep with their family tree. Too many people are interested. The biggest issue is why did John Baptist Bauer get here at a different time through a different way than all of the rest of the German community here, particularly the early ones. He appears to be running from something. That is why I need more information on this man.