Sager genealogy: History of Research by Walter Smith, Baltimore March 2011 I began about 1999 using a chart from Francis Lolly. In the Sager line, that chart listed details of A.V., but his father as only Abraham Sager, MD. Thru much effort, I found a Abraham Sager in the Dayton Cemetary. Further looking found in the adjacent plot Samuel and Eliza Jane. (note: many cemetary listings online do not place the physical locations). To demonstrate, a Harrisonburg VA researcher sent me a copy of a typed list of cemetary plots that reflected somewhat physical locations of graves relative to each other. In another section of the cemetary, I found Susanna Sager, wife of Abraham. In two adjacent census, 1860 and 1870, I found A.S. as physician and A.S. as farmer. It's the same A.S. because he has a Rebecca Garber first age 6 and then age 16 living in the same household. In this research, I found a number of other A.S. of that period, including a Dr. Abraham Sager of Kalamazoo, Michigan who was born in the same year. In addition, there is another A.S. b. 1812 Shenandoah as well as A.S.'s attributed to b. 1789, 1805, 1818, 1826, 1835. In parsing the facts, the best circumstantial evidence is the one I selected. At this, I was stumped for a few years for finding the Sager line, but continued hooking in other lines. Sometime around 2008, a researcher I've been in contact with, Steve Rosenwasser, was searching for his wife's family, and came up with a will on LDS that confirmed A.S. MD was the father of A.V. In addition, he found a will confirming Christian Sager as father of Abraham. This pretty much tied up my "Grand Unified Sager" theory into a package. His wife's GGGf is Abraham W. Sager, as shown on the top tree chart. The wills and his research revealed other relationships with Miller, Kagey, Long, many of which I was familiar with from circumstantial evidence and hard evidence that didn't have enough validity to tie-in. My early Sager inquiries, and misc data I wanted to share can be found by searching on my name or other criteria on: genealogy.com or http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/last7days.cgi?sager and ancestry.com or http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.sager/mb.ashx I've managed to tie-in Sager to other backward looking lines where other researchers have already done extensive work. Other tie-ins include the Haines line of New Jersey. The first time I saw that was on Robert Nelsons website, which is now removed or elsewhere. The tie in there is Rachel Nixon Haines. His website originally has 50,000 names. Christian Sager tied to Miller can be found on the old Geocities website, which is, as of this date geocities.ws . Other contributors include Helen Gaskell, who provided much on the Cooke and Parker lines. There is also a significant Ivey line. Other lines need more research and some will stay dead ends. For example, as "recently" as A.V. Sager is, I haven't found other siblings. And Dr. A.S. first wife is elusive. In general, there seem to be several major lines of Sager research. Some of these lines are quite complete. Some Sager persons I'm sure probably crossed the ocean several times in pursuit of business or family affairs. I have no specific examples yet. In addition, emmigration often took several ports. For example, a German may travel to England before boarding a ship to the United States. In addition, members of the same line may have emmigrated at different times: perhaps brothers emmigrated 2 years apart. The first, and seemingly most complete documented line, is what I call the NewYork/Ontario Sagers. They came early and migrated thru Ohio and Michigan, and perhaps Virginia and Pennsylvania. The second is our line, where the name Johann Balthzar Seeger is common reference. The 3rd is a group of Russian Jews who appear to emmigate in the 1850-1860 time scale. At this time, it appears that Henry and Naomi Sager of the Oregon Trail is not in my line, but may be perhaps in the NY/Ontario Sager line. Bill Sayger did a lot of research on the various lines, and has a book. At this time it is missing my line below Johann Conrad. Here's an abstract: Descendants of Johann Melchior Seeger (1636-1720), who was born in Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, and died in Brandau. His wife, Anna Maria (ca. 1643-1710) was born in Brandau. Several of their children immigrated to America. Most of the genealogical material included in this book deals with Johann Peter (immigrated to America in 1750), Gabriel (in 1754), Johann Conrad (in 1761), and Johann Wilhelm (in 1761). They were sons of Johann Balthasar Seeger, a grandson of Melchior and Anna Maria Seeger. Descendants live in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Virginia, Arkansas and elsewhere. There is also a book frequently referred to by Clyde Sager, and another by Ward Sager. Both lines have a "Melchior Sager" in the mid-late 1700's and he is oft used as a focal point for generating downward lines. They can be distinguished by a careful examination of the tree, but one quick way to tell the difference is to note that the Rockingham line's Melchior Sager was married to Anna Maria Seeger, and the NY/Ontario Melchior was married to Elizabeth Sinsabaugh. end.