Discoveries and New Questions

 In July 2025, several members of the family were able to locate and visit the Wormuth Family Cemetery in Sullivan County, New York.

There, lo and behold, was the, now broken, headstone of Peter Wormuth that we had previously thought was in the Harvard Cemetery.

The cemetery is on private land and I, for one, will not divulge the exact location out of respect for the current owners.  I did contact the owners requesting that members of the family be given permission to clean up and maintain the cemetery.  I have not had an answer from them.

Some of the brush has been cleared revealing at least 10 additional stones scattered among the brush.  We did clean Peter's headstone and there is talk of repairing it.  It would be nice to clear the rest of the brush and install a small barrier around the cemetery so that the stones are protected from damage.

We're on hold at the moment.  But, I have updated the page for the cemetery @ WikiTree.  We may be able to determine some of the family members who are buried in the cemetery.  There are already 3 names that have been added to the page; the link above will take you there.

At the beginning of October 2025, Les Wormuth and later he and his sister, Lorraine, met me in Montgomery County, New York, to do some Wormuth research.  One of the censuses indicated that our Peter Wormuth was born in Montgomery County.  We want to identify his parents and birthplace; he was born about 1788.

There are some very good collections of documents and historic texts at various locations in Montgomery County and there has been a lot of Wormuths and Wormwoods who have lived there.

While we were unsuccessful in finding out Peter Wormuth, there were lots of records of lots of other Wormuths that will become part of the larger Wormuth One-Name Study.

Les is off to Kansas to visit family for the winter with ideas of what the next steps should be to find our Peter's parents which we will work on when he returns.  It was nice to meet Lorraine and we're in touch.  She's interested in family photos so I will be sending some to her.  Les and Lorraine are from a branch of the family through Dora and Richard Wormuth and, until recently, didn't know much about the family history but are enthusiastic.  It's very nice to have some family members to work with on the research.

There are more variants spellings of the family surname than I originally expected including many that are apparently just spelling differences that occurred before there were established English spelling rules.  One of the oddest, for me, is Wolgemuth which has it's own handful of variations.  I could not figure out how you can get to Wormuth from Wolgemuth and vice versa so, before we started on our research trek, I asked the question @ WikiTree where they have a process for asking such questions.  What I was told is that the names are not the same; they are derived from two different plants.

So, I've decided that I will be dropping Wolgemuth and those like surnames from the Study.  However, there are clear instance where Wolgemuth and Wormuth are used interchangeably for the same person.  I guess they didn't know the difference between the two plants or the names either.  So, I will include individuals identified both as Wolgemuth and Wormuth; just as I'm including the several people who have both surnames, Wormuth and Wormwood.  It's a little messy but doable.

So, we continue.  Les will be focused on our Peter Wormuth and while I will do the same, I will be more focused on the larger family and many, many people with the names that we may or may not be related to.  It is not the purpose of a One-Name Study, to follow family lines, but to find and record all instances of the surname and whatever other discoveries can be made about all those people.

Decisions, decisions

 I've decided to remove the Wolgemuth and similar surnames from the Study after a friendly and forgiving of my laziness cohort @ WikiTree answered my question about the relationship between the Wormuth/Wormwood surnames and Wolgemuth.  The difference is, of course, the derivation; they're derived from the name of different wild plants.

While I've seen Wolgemuth used interchangeably with Wormuth, they are different names with different derivations so I'm dropping the former.  It will lightening the workload a bit.

Wormuth and Wormwood, however, are both names for Artemesia, also called wormwood and several individuals were known by both names.

I started a study of the US Censuses searching for variant spellings of Wormuth.  I have a lot more work to do (I'm only into the 1820 census) but I have discovered that:  

-- the Wormuths in Montgomery County, New York were scattered throughout the county;

-- there were Wormuths in Maine;

-- there were Wormuths in Ohio;

-- there were Wormuths in Pennsylvania.

In addition, as with most surnames, there are a scattering of Wormuths in various other states.

Doing this study will make it possible for me to follow certain individuals to see if there were definite migration trails.

It does not appear that the Wormuths were Palatines, but they married some Palatines.  I'm a member of the Palatine Migration Project @ WikiTree.  The Palatines came to this continent in 1710 and spread out from two settlements on opposite sides of the Hudson River.  The Project has a variety of listings of the Palatines who arrived on the 10 ships that survived the trip.  There are no Wormuths among those lists.

A Peter Wormuth, in Montgomery County, married Anna Fehling/Failing whose father, Henry, was among those who arrived.

So, the Wormuths arrived around the same time or pre-dated the Palatine arrival, as far as I can tell.

Wormuth Rock, Cherry Valley, NY

Our branch's furthest back ancestor, Peter Wormuth, was shown on one census to have been born in Montgomery County.  We will be visiting Montgomery County, New York, shortly to see if we can find evidence of him there.

However, since there were Wormuths in Pennsylvania, there is also a Montgomery County, PA, and I will have to investigate that possibility.

And, so it continues.

News

 Our thanks to Elyssa Olsen (Ihlefeldt) who guided us to the Wormuth family cemetery in Callicoon on Saturday, July 19, 2025.

We found it!  Actually her mom, Donna, found it a while ago.  Remember this photo?

Quite a few of us have a copy of this photo now.  Donna took this picture of our Peter Wormuth's headstone.  It's there, at the Wormuth family cemetery.  That was then/this is it today.  

broken.  We're going to try to have it repaired.  That's Elyssa, holding it.

Our thanks to Dylan and Olivia Olsen, Elyssa's kids, for cleaning the stone.

We had a great time; Elyssa, her kids, cousin Les Wormuth and me.

There are about 10 stones in the cemetery all clustered around the tree; the rest have no writing on them.  It's all overgrown.

I'm hoping the new owner will allow us to maintain the cemetery. It may take time to establish a relationship so be patient while we work on this.  

Hurray!!!