2008 Neff Family Reunion Report

John Neff Family Organization 2008 Reunion and Meeting
September 19, 2008
Brighton Stake Center, 2895 East Creek Road, Cottonwood Heights, Utah
Dinner at 6 p.m., bring your own picnic
Family Meeting 7:30 in the Relief Society Room
Alice Neff, president
832 East Grenoble, Midvale, Utah 84047
801-255-1617
neff1617@comcast.net
JohnNeffFamily.blogspot.com

Thanks to all who attended the John Neff Family Reunion September 19th at the Brighton Stake Center. I am so sorry I transposed the address numbers and sent everyone on a wild-goose chase. I was delighted that so many Neffs found us. Because of the problem, we started a little late. We had copies of some of the old “Neff Times” that we were able to sell. We made enough from the sales to pay for the lemonade and cookies. Some of the cousins updated addresses and we visited for a while.

At 7:30 the adults moved into the Relief Society Room for a meeting while the children remained outside with Steve, Corey, Dave and Jamie Neff and Sandy Pick, for games and activities.

I took charge of the meeting, thanking those who helped make the reunion happen; MarShan and Virginia Nelson, Becky Rosander, Cherry Oldroyd, Natalie Brinton, Elwood, Ted and Bob Neff and the crew outside with the children.

My friend Sidney Wells presented information on using Y-Chromosome DNA to prove relationships of males to their male ancestors. I then told a bit about the Neff DNA test. We then explained a little about the newFamilySearch Internet Site the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is developing and asked for assistance from the family in updating the system, with your children, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins information and leaving the problems of the John Neff, Mary Barr, John Neff senior, Jacob Neff and Franz Neff to the family organization to straighten out.

Please read these two reports below.

We have additional back issues of the old “Neff Times” and the printed picture of John Neff and Mary Barr. Each of these is available for $3 plus $1 shipping for each 3 ordered. Some of the back issues are not available, they would have to be reprinted or copied. I would like help scanning or typing the histories contained in the “Neff Times” to this blog. Here are the issues that are available:
Franklin Neff Fall 1996
Amos Herr Neff Winter 1997
Reunion issue, no histories Spring 1997
Amos Herr Neff, continued Fall 1997
Mary Ann Neff Rockwell Spring 1998
Susannah Neff Peirce Booth Summer 1998
Benjamin Barr Neff Spring 1999
John Neff III Summer 1999

There are no back issues available for:
Mary Barr Neff Spring 1995
John Neff II Summer 1995
Elizabeth Neff Stillman Fall 1999
John Neff Story Spring 2000

We had began with Mary Barr and John Neff II because they are the parents of this wonderful family that all joined the church and came west. It is amazing to me that teenage and young adult children would all choose to follow their parents, leaving their wealth behind, to worship God in a new way. The John Neff Story that we began in 2000 should have had 1 or 2 more installments. We were repeating the information researched by Bill Neff and John Murray of the Neff Family Historical Society in Pennsylvania. They presented their research in the “NEFF NEWS” September 1996, February 1997 and May 1997 issues.

The above back issues of the “NEFF NEWS” are available from the Neff Family Historical Society, P. O. Box 6664, Harrisburg, PA 17112-0664, neffnews@ix.netcom.com. Also, you may be interested in the last two issues of the “NEFF NEWS”, May 2005 and May 2006 which cover some history of Franz Neff, our immigrant ancestor, what he brought with him to the US and settling in Germantown. Back Issues are $5, postage included.

Please call or send names and addresses of family members to update our mailing list. Also, we would like to update our family history information. We have many descendants of John Neff and Mary Barr in our database but new babies are born every day, marriages and deaths happen about as fast. I keep the information in my computer. It is not available on the Internet nor will it ever be. I am aware of the dangers of letting personal information out into the public. Having the information on my computer helps us track the family address list and helps me identify who I am talking to when you call. It will never be all up to date, but with your help it can continue to be a useful resource.

Additional information on the Neff family can be found on the NFHS website at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~neff/ . Your cousin John Fisher has
http://www.eternal-links.net/Family_History/ngf/11/2/history/John%20Neff%20II.html which is a history of John Neff and Mary Barr.

NEFF DNA Project

John Neff Family Organization

DNA Report by Alice Neff

The Neff Family Historical Society has been doing a DNA study through Family Tree DNA, http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Neff click on “Y results”, on the International Neff Family. My husband submitted a sample of his DNA on behalf of the John Neff Family. The John Neff Family Organization paid for a DNA test for Hanns Naef, a descendant of Rudolf Näf, Adam’s brother, when none of Adam’s descendants would agree to the test. It is a match.

As a family we have never been able to trace our ancestry beyond the father of Dr. Franz Neff, Dr. Hans Heinrich Neff of Duhren, Germany. We have long felt we were descended from the Adam Näf who is a hero of the 1531 Kappel War. Some of us have been to the Näfenhaus in Kappel, Switzerland. I have met descendants of Adam Näf and was astonished by the similarities between them and my husband’s uncles.

We have much of the research done on Kappel Näfs.  For hundreds of years they lived in this little farming village in the Albis Mountains southwest of Zurich. The Battle of Kappel in 1531 was a fight between the Catholic Church and the Canton of Zurich, which wanted to reform the church. Each side had a standard or banner. To win the battle, all the other side had to do was bring down the standard, which often meant killing the standard bearer. Adam Näf was a guard. When the enemy attempted to wrest the banner from the standard bearer Adam swung his broad sword, severing the head of the enemy. The banner was saved. Zurich won the battle. Adam’s father Hans Näf died in that battle, 11 Oct 1531. Ulrich Zwingli, the leader of the reform movement in Switzerland, was injured, captured and, because he would not renounce his faith, killed, quartered and burned. Because of the heroic effort on his part, Adam Näf was honored for the rest of his live. He was given citizenship in Zurich in 1533. In 1550 he and each of his children were given a home in Kappel.

Our records going back and many of the records of the Näfs of Kappel were lost during the 1600's. The Näfs, and many others from Switzerland, felt the Reformed or Protestant Churches didn’t go far enough in trying to teach the correct principles Jesus had taught. They felt infant baptism was wrong and they could not get Zwingli or Martin Luther to go that far. So they became part of the Anabaptist movement, lead by Menno Simons (1496-1561) and Jacob Amman (founder of the Amish Religion). Anabaptists were hunted and persecuted by both Catholics and Reformers. To have your name on a list of Anabaptists was a death sentence. They were often married in the Reformed Church, so it would be recognized by the state, but they were not christened nor could they be buried in a Church Cemetery. Anabaptists from Switzerland were often exiled to Germany, their lands and property taken, they were imprisoned, beaten, and killed for their beliefs.

Records have not yet been found to link us to the Adam Näf Family. However, the DNA test has proven that you are part of these courageous folks. You are descended from heros, not just Adam, but all those who gave their lives trying to live the principles they believed in.

To find out more about the DNA study, go to www.familytreedna.com/public/neff and go to Y Results. You will be able to see the markers for different individuals, identified by the Letter given the different families by John Murray and Bill Neff of the Neff Family Historical Society and a brief description. If you need it, the kit number is 59870 and the password E4816. Our John Neff, the miller who settled in East Millcreek, line is # 13, identified as “A1 line, Germany, Baden, Duhren c. 1685".

Two (2) John Neffs

New FamilySearch and 2 John Neffs
by Alice Neff

Sidney Wells, a friend of mine, introduce the newFamlySearch Internet program that will come out in a year or two. This is a huge project, linking all the families of the world into one database. It is inspired and unique. Nothing like it has never been done before. Everyone will be able to add to it and correct data they have entered. As soon as information is added, everyone in the world can view it and send an email to the person who submitted it. We will all be able to work together to get this great work done, that we might present to the Lord “...a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation.” D&C 128:24

There are problems with the program right now. The first is that in combining all the records that have ever been submitted to the church, errors that were in the database were carried forward. The computer engineers at the church are working to find a way to eliminate these errors. We are working to fix the errors in the information about our ancestors.

When newFamilySearch.org becomes available please type in information you have on your own children, parents, aunts, cousins and ancestors for whom you have done the original research. I think we will be able to resolve the problems with the John Neffs better if everyone isn’t making changes.

The big problem is that John Neff, the pioneer, has been recorded as having more than one wife. Here is the explanation of the problem.

There are two John Neffs who came to Utah as pioneers. Both must have been wonderful men, but they are not the same man.

Our ancestor John Neff of East Millcreek, was a Mennonite born in Strasburg, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 19 Sep 1794 to John Neff (born 1 Jan 1769 in Strasburg) and Barbara Herr (born 28 Jul 1762 in Strasburg). On 12 Jan 1822 John married Mary Barr born 1 Dec 1801 in Bart Township, Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Christian Barr (born 11 Oct 1765 in Bart Township) and Susanna Brenneman (born 1 Apr 1772 in Donegal, Lancaster, Pennsylvania).

John and Mary have 10 children, 8 came to Salt Lake and raised their families in the LDS church, Amanda died young and Cyrus died in Winter Quarters. When John and Mary arrived in Winter Quarters late in 1846, John bought the flour mill Brigham Young was having built and got it up and running.

When the family went west in 1847, they left their son, Franklin Neff, and his wife, Elizabeth Musser, behind to run the mill. The rest of the family traveled with the Jedediah M. Grant Company and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, 2 October 1847. The next spring their son, Amos Herr Neff, and his new wife, Martha Ann Dilworth, went back to Winter Quarters to help Franklin and Elizabeth and their new baby girl, Martha Elizabeth Neff, get to Salt Lake. They happened to be in the same company as another John Neff and his family.

John Neff of East Millcreek only ever had one wife, Mary Barr. They lived the rest of their lives in East Millcreek running a flour mill, building and running lumber mills and serving in the church. Their sons kept the mills going after they died. John died 9 May 1869 and is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

The John Neff who died in Pleasant Grove 5 June 1877 was born in Amsterdam, Montgomery, New York 16 July 1795 to John Neff and Martha Beckwith (who were married in the Dutch Reform Church). This John Neff married Rachel Starr who was born 30 April 1784 in Brookfield, Connecticut to Elijah Starr and Mary Smith. They were married about 1815 in New York and then moved to Illinois where their three daughters were born, Lucy, Lodema and Laura. Rachel died between 1840 and 1846. John had joined the LDS Church before 1840 and in 1846 took the children to Winter Quarters on their way to Utah. There he married Susannah Gazey, 10 October 1847. (Notice Susannah Gazey was married to the other John Neff in Winter Quarters 8 days after our John Neff arrived in Salt Lake.) Susannah and her first husband William Beers had joined the church in England and come to New York and then Nauvoo with their 6 children. William died or left the family.

This is where it gets confusing. John Neff of Pleasant Grove, his daughters, Susannah and her children were in the Brigham Young Company arriving in Salt Lake Valley the 20-24 of September 1848. Franklin Neff, (son of the our John Neff) his wife Elizabeth, their daughter Martha Elizabeth, his brother Amos and his wife Martha Ann were in the company also. On June 8, 1848 Elizabeth wrote to her mother, Anna Bitner “there has been two deths Since the we are here[,] A babe Six weeks old[,] the other was drowned[,] one of John Neffs children[,] A boy Eight years old...” This boy was Susannah’s son, Charles Beers, who died 25 May 1848, in the Elkhorn River.

John and Susannah settled in Pleasant Grove where Susannah served in the Relief Society for several years. They were sealed 11 Oct 1852,

On 9 June 1870 the John Neff of Pleasant Grove went to the Endowment House and
was sealed to his second wife, Susannah Gazey and
Mary Gazey and
Ann Gazey, her sisters, and
Rachel Starr, his first wife and
Mary Lull, daughter of Rachel Starr and her first husband Walter Lull and
his mother Martha Beckwith.

After Susanna died, John went on a mission back East at 80 years old. When he returned John Neff of Pleasant Grove married Susan Roberts on 25 Nov 1874 and they had the John Myron Neff born 26 Mar 1876 in Pleasant Grove. This child died 5 April 1891. John Neff of Pleasant Grove died 6 Jun 1877 in Pleasant Grove and is buried there with his wife and son.

Notice the sealings in 1870, the marriage in 1874 and the birth of John Myron Neff in 1876 are after our John Neff of East Millcreek died in 1869.