| Notes |
- Johann Philip Steffen (c.1704-late-1764/early-1765), Annamaria Barbara (Herzog) and their sons George and Lorentz arrived at Philadelphia aboard the St. Andrew in Sep. 1737. He later married a Magdalena who bore several more children, and finally he married a Dorothy after 1753 that probably didn't produce progeny. Guardianships for his children were established on Mar. 5, 1765 and proceedings took place in Orphans Court in August 1766.
The earliest reference to this man comes from Hirschthal in the Duchy of Zweibrucken, which records that he was a newcomer to Hirchsthal who had married a local woman. No document records where he came from nor the name of his parents. However, DNA very strongly links his descendants to those of Ulrich Stephan of Lebanon Township (memorial #34686652).
During the 1990s a researcher claimed that Philip's parents were a Johannes Stephan and Elizabeth Haller living in Climbach, close to Hirschthal; this was purportedly based upon a document photocopied in Steffy & Stephens, "Ancestry & Descendants". This claim found itself onto This document was recently submitted to an expert, who checked her conclusions with three colleagues
Un-sourced pedigrees mostly assign him to a man in nearby Eppenbrunn or a man in nearby Climbach, but these have no documentary support and are simply wild guesses based solely upon the nearness of these places to Hirschthal. To boot, what has been reported of the 1726 Climbach document is erroneous in almost every particular.
A few such pedigrees link him to a Stephan family that resided in Hoffen, Alsace, 14 m SE of Hirschthal across rugged, heavily forested terrain. While no documents support this either, a descendant of Johan Philip Steffan has accumulated a surprising group of DNA matches to descendants of the Hoffen family: comparing her matches to descendants of Philip's sons George, Peter and Frederick against her matches to descendants of Ulrich Steffan of Hoffen (later, Lebanon Township, PA) [#34686652], the total for Ulrich is only slightly less than the total for Philip's three sons, the average cMs value is only slightly less, and the range of cMs values is only slightly less. This may well hint that Ulrich and Johan Philip were at least first cousins if not even full brothers. Ulrich's father Johan Stephan was the schoolmaster at Hoffen and died at Hoffen on May 2, 1730 aged 54 years 9 month. It isn't clear from the Hoffen records whether "Jost Stephan" was Ulrich's brother or uncle; if uncle, he could be another candidate for Johan Philip's father. On this family see Annette Kunselman Burgert, "Eighteenth Century Emigrants from the Northern Alsace to America" (1992), pp.485-6.
NOTE WELL: During this family's first two generations the surname is extraordinarily unstable. The German would be Stephan or Steffan, but it can be found as Steffen, Stephen, Steven, Stevens. Towards 1800 it is in a process of transition to Steffy, Steffe, Steffey, but the older forms still recur especially with German scribes.
[No burials have as yet been discovered for the generation of the patriarch's children and very few for that of his grandchildren. The earliest date from the 1820s-1840s and tend to be great-grandchildren who died young. Most of the burials that remain undiscovered probably were at Muddy Creek Union Church, where the family was repeatedly documented well into its third generation.]
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1704 - 1765 (61 years)
