Welcome
to our Rittenhouse Genealogy
This website was first posted to Internet in 2001-2003 by Linton E. Love who by 2010 needed to reduce his genealogy activity. Concerned this information might not be available to other researchers he approached Mrs. Pat High of Jordan Station, Ontario, who is well acquainted with the history of the Mennonite families in the Niagara area. Pat agreed to become the webmaster of this and other websites involving local Mennonite families. We have not changed the content of this file so it will read as from the perspective of Linton Love
A word of explanation is appropriate so you will understand what I have been trying to accomplish. I had completed a direct trace in my own line, back to Nicholas Rittenhouse, his father Willem Rüddinghuysen and his grandfather Claes Rettinghausen. This was a 100% proven connection all the way back. I probably should have left well enough alone, but I became curious about the descendants of Nicholas’ sister Elizabeth and brother Gerhard . I didn’t have the recent family relationships for them, as I did for my own line. So the only way I could approach this new research was to start at the beginning with Elizabeth, Gerhard and Nicholas and try to move down through their descendants.
You can be sure you will find mistakes, typos, duplications and misinformation. These may be due to my carelessness, or misinterpreting the records or even problems from the conflicting information in some of the old files and findings of former genealogists. For all these excuses please accept my apologies. I would appreciate if you would advise me of any errors you find.
This research proved quite daunting as there were certainly a great number of Rittenhouse relations as the families multiplied. The normal resources brought forward a great deal of information about the more prominent members. Wills, Deeds and Naturalization records helped but local history and family genealogy books were also of great assistance. Rittenhouse was such a prominent family name in Germantown, Cresheim and Roxborough Townships, in the first half of the 18th century, that research went along quite well. Regardless of their Mennonite pacifist beliefs, many of them stood on Ridge Pike in 1777 to help defend Germantown from the English invaders.
By the time of the first United States Census in 1790 the families were spreading up through Montgomery County in Pennsylvania and also into New Jersey. In the early 1800s the emigration was to states further west such as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. However the 1790 census, as you know, and all those up to 1850, only named the head of the household with a count of how many children of different age groups were in the family. This determined a presence for the head of the house but unfortunately, in not naming the children, made connection to the next generation that much more difficult for genealogists.
Starting with 1850, the census records were a huge help but it meant the volume in the project increased tremendously. Remember I was attempting to trace every Rittenhouse descendant both male and female. I wondered whether there would be Rittenhouse families who were not descended from William Rittenhouse in Germantown. I did find a few in the 19th century who had been born in Germany and had arrived in America in the middle of the 1800s. They could easily be related to our Rittenhouse families back in Europe but I have not attempted to prove this.
As of 12 July 2009 there are 17,985 Rittenhouse related individuals in this database. I realize there are thousands more.
Please note this will be the last version Linton E. Love will be uploading to this website and I will not be adding any new information at the present time. If you have questions concerning any information on this site I would be pleased to respond to your query with any assistance I can offer. You can contact me by using the e-mail link below:
Last updated 12 JuLY 2009
DIRECT E-MAIL LINK to (MRS.) PAT HIGH
If your interest is in a particular generation you can jump to
it quickly by clicking on the appropriate link below.