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I have spent 150 hours pouring over FHC microfilm 2005587 which has
christening and marriage records for the community Muhlethurnen, Bern,
Switz which includes Riggisburg, Bendicht Juchli's residence. I seriously
doubt that you are descended from BJ. When he left Switzerland, his wife,
Magdelina Keusen, and daughter, Johanna, remained behind. His son,
Abraham, age 14, may have accompanied him to America-- I have not seen a
marriage or death record for him nor have I seen his name as a sponsor for
any christenings in Switz. The daughter married Hieronimous Messerli in
1745 in Switzerland. Wife Ma(g)delina appeared as a sponser on
christening records until late 1739-- that she remained his wife is
without doubt as she was listed after 1736, when BJ left, as "Madelina
Keusen Juchlin." It is true that the Deppen family came from Riggisburg and there were a
few Wenger families in the same parish. From looking at the christening
records associations between the Juchli family and the Deppens and Wengers
in the late 1600s to the 1740s do not appear to be intimate. I do have the exact christening date for BJ at home--- it was sometime in
Dec 1708. His parents were Hans Juchli and Christina Kunkler. BJ was
apparently the only surviving son of this couple. Quite a bit of
intermarriage between the Juchli, Kunkler and Keusen families as well as
with Hofman, Steinhauer and Wyss. BJ became a father rather young as his
1st child, Johanna, was christened in 1722, and son Abraham was christened
in 1723. BJ and his wife appeared together at other christenings as
sponsors. I have a copy of the section on the Yeakley family from the book "Counting
Kindred of Christian Deppen" and I believe the authors have done a
disservice to the Yeakley family. This portion of the book is flawed in
that no serious research on Benedict Juchli was done. Considering the
strict religious group that he joined in America, I doubt that he would
have become a bigamist and fathered 3 additional children. I would like to
contact the author of the Deppen reprint of 1979, but don't know who or
how to do this as I have never seen the entire book. There are other Yeakley descendents who are questioning the veracity of
the Deppen book-- You should look up Darren LaMarr who has a home page and
e-mail address listed at:
http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/l/a/m/Darren-M-LaMarr/index.html Eventually-- not in the very near future-- I will try to publish the
christening and marriage records for the Juchli family, perhaps in the
Brethren genealogical journal. It is counterproductive to perpetuate
myths and inaccuracies when in fact we are all out to discover the truth
when researching our family histories. Most likely, neither one of us is
descended from BJ, but I have invested so much time and effort deciphering
the Old German handwriting on the church records that I have decided that
I will share what I find about BJ with others eventually. In the
meantime, I really think that you should view the account of Benedict
Juchli as the progenitor of the Yeakley family as being inaccurate. Teresa
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