Research Resources & Surname Variations — Click on the emoji to watch associated recording.
Tom Kessler Nov 2025
Probably the most important complementary resource is an Excel spreadsheet that I have been updating and expanding for many years. This spreadsheet includes the numbering system that I developed so that each ancestor could have a unique number. This is a valuable asset when conducting research to avoid mislabeling people and content. Feel free to download and use the database. If you find errors, please contact me.
KesslerKeslarKeslar Excel Database This is an Excel Directory of family members that includes the family numbering system (one that I created in order to uniquely identify each family member); and 2) US Census information for all family members from 1790 through 1950:
Other Family History-related Sites
As noted in other places, I started working on a specific website for the Frederick County Kessler’s. I deleted the old site after verifying that I had ported all of the content to this site. That way there won’t be problems of having one page with more current information and another with older content that has not been updated.
I have also developed a website documenting my mother’s lineage (Fairchild) and one documenting my wife’s lineage (Rykoski). Links to those sites are also included below. Here are other sites that I maintain.
- KesslerFamilyHistoryBlog.com This site is the location for comments posted by others about the family history content and associated responses.
- FairchildFamilyHistory.Wordpress.Com Family history of my mother’s side of the family. The Fairchild’s immigrated to the colony of Connecticut in 1640, only 20 years after the Pilgrims faced their ordeal a little farther north in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Includes important historical context including Revolutionary and Civil wars, how and why families migrated, and other interesting genealogical elements.
- RykoskiFamilyHistory.Wordpress.com Family history of my wife’s maternal family. It includes a historical perspective of Poland in the mid-to-late 1800s and the Locust Point area of Baltimore.
Research Notes
1. I have been working on the Kessler Family History since 2009, when my brother Ed passed. He had the genealogy ‘bug’ for many years, before the advent of computers and online resources. He wrote letters and used the telephone to obtain information, and he made solid inroads. I have tried to carry on from where he left off.
2. The family history is organized into chapters for each of Andreas’ children and associated pages about their descendants. The pages contain information from correspondence with my brother and facts and information obtained through the Internet and some published documents which I have in my possession. Each chapter includes a table listing husband/wife and children with as much factual data (birth, death, marriage, etc.) as could be located about them.
3. This data is also included in a detailed genealogical database that I maintain on Ancestry.com (Kessler-FairchildFamilyTree(2018.1)) and in FamilyTreeMaker. If anyone wants a GED file to import into their own software, just let me know.
4. In order to make the family history more than just a repository of names, events and dates, in some cases I added historical context, especially for older generations where little is known. For generations where I or others have memories, I added what I and those who shared with me can remember.
5. I also added information about “maternal ancestry” to communicate information that was available about the female lineage. This is more challenging since female records were historically less common and more difficult to locate.
6. The family history has been developed in stages. There is so much information that I am tackling the development in phases and will have to return, over time, after adding the baseline information, to enhance and flesh out the details.
7. After completing the initial family history I asked myself how I could continue to expand, broaden and improve it. That led me to a series of questions that I am currently working toward answering. For example, I asked myself why did Johannes George Bernhard Kessler and his wife Anna leave Germany and bring themselves and their children to America? That led me into detailed research related to Winden, Germany and Zweibruecken Duchy which was interesting. I have included some of the results of this research into the manuscript.
8. I spent considerable time investigating this question: Why did Andreas relocate from Frederick, Maryland to Donegal Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania which is over 200 miles away when he was in his 50s and why did half his children go with him and half remain in Frederick County? This led me down some interesting pathways. My initial question was that perhaps we had the wrong Donegal Township. I investigated and discovered a West Donegal Township in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania which is much closer to Frederick. And it was founded in the early 1700s in contrast to Westmoreland County which was not settled until the late 1700s because of Indian attacks and the French and Indian War which occurred in the late 1750s and early 1760s and involved General Braddock, George Washington, and Fort Duquesne? But evidence continues to suggest that it was in fact Westmoreland County’s Donegal Township, which is where old Andreas Kessler lived and is buried. More to follow as I continue my research.
9. Readers might ask an important question: “Are we sure we are descended from Johann George Bernhard Kessler?” In the early 2000s Karen Lynne Kessler asked me to take a DNA test. She also had her brother, James (Jim), take the DNA test. The two of us were determined through testing to be related. Likely Jim is descended from Andreas’ son John while I am descended from Andrew. Both were grandchildren of Johann George Bernhard Kessler. So, in addition to genealogical evidence, the DNA tests provide strong evidence of our family lineage.
10. There are many Kessler lines that are not interconnected. A few years back I participated in a genealogical activity by taking a DNA test. The results of the DNA test, which Ed had already determined via his research, was that our family was descendant from Johann George Bernhard Kessler. Other contemporary Kessler men have taken the test and been found to not be related to me or our line. So please be cautious in trying to introduce Kessler history into our line of research – check and double check the facts before adding new people or relationships.
11. There is a book titled: Out from the Blue Ridge: A Genealogical History of the Kessler/Keslar Families of Botetourt County, Virginia by Morris S. Kessler and Rev. A. Dean Kesler with a forward dated 1 Sep 1984. I have this book and will scan it when I have time (current date is 19 Oct 2025) and make it available on this site. Be cautious when using the book. There are a lot of statements and purported Kessler relatives who are not actually related to our line. In defense of the authors, the material was developed before the Internet was available as a research tool. I’m sure if the contents were re-examined now using Ancestry.com and other resources, significant adjustments and corrections could and would be made.
For accurate information about our Botetourt County, Virginia lineage, go to Ch 6 – 1.3.2 Johannes John Phillip Kessler (1772-1860). This was Andreas’ son. John Phillip Kessler married Nancy Waskey. If you encounter Kessler’s in this area of Virginia who were not descendants of John and Nancy, they likely are not related. If a DNA test proves otherwise, please let me know so that I can investigate.
Possibility that Not All Keslar/Kesler Descendants are Descended from Andreas
1.1 Johannes (John) and 1.3 Andreas’ mother, Anna, died on September 20, 1768, at the age of 54. The summer of 1768 was hot, but there is no account of significant pandemics or diseases in America in this and the preceding year. Their father, Johann outlived his wife, by 24 years, dying on January 1, 1792, at the age of 80. Her two sons, John and Andreas were in their mid-to-late 20s, and her daughters, Susanna and Anna, were in their teens when she passed.
There are few records that provide familial details about John. We know that he was born in January of 1742, came to America with his family, and died in Feb 1826 in Frederick County, Maryland. One record was located with his name – a christening for a daughter, Anna Maria Kessler, dated November 16, 1766, at Evangelical Lutheran of Middletown, Frederick, Maryland. Her parents are listed as Johannes and Catharina Kessler. Also, as will be discussed again shortly, there is an entry for John Kesler in the 1790 US Census for Frederick County, Maryland which indicates seven family members, including two males under the age of 16, four males age 16 and older, and one female, which was probably John’s wife, Catharina.
This is important, because there are some significant issues that cannot be reconciled unless we accept the premise that John parented children during the 1760s.
The reason that establishing the likelihood that John had children is important because it helps explain things that would be difficult to reconcile otherwise. For example:
- The 1790 U.S. Census for Frederick County, Maryland, includes entries for Andrew (likely Andreas rather than his son Andrew) Kesler, John Kesler, George Keisler, and Jacob Kesler. Andreas had sons named John, George, and Jacob, but all were too young in 1790 to be included in the Census and to have families with up to five children. Andreas’ son John just turned 18 in 1790, George was 14, and Jacob was 8 years old.
- Assuming that the 1790 US Census included both Andreas and his brother John, there is no reasonable explanation for the presence of George and Jacob, or for Mathias Kesler who lived in nearby Washington County.
- In 1783, a deed was recorded in Springhill, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in the name of Petter Keslar, obviously not Andreas’ son, Peter, who was born in 1778.
So who were these other Kessler/Keslar/Kesler/Keisler’s? Is there another explanation for their presence in the Census and land records? One possibility is they could be uncles or cousins of John and Andreas. According to genealogical records, their father, Johann George Bernhard Kessler had a brother, Peter Kessler, who was born in 1690, making him 21 years older than Johann. It is possible that he also emigrated to America and that the 1790 Kessler’s are his children or even his grandchildren. It is unlikely, however, that Johann’s brother is the Petter Keslar listed in the 1783 Westmoreland County real estate transaction because he would have been 93 years old by this time.
You Can Help
If ANYONE in the family is interested in helping with some of this research, please let me know and I will help you get started.
As you can see, I continue to investigate and report on the family history. I have done extensive work as well for my mother’s family – the Fairchilds …. who came to the colonies in the 1640s …. only 20 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts. The stories and details will continue to be added and adjusted as long as I am able to do so.
In particular, the most valuable way you can help is by identifying mistakes and letting me know (kesslertg@gmail.com) and contributing photos (any and all), narrative describing your memories — parents, grandparents, growing up, family lore. I will incorporate it here and it will outlive all of us in this family repository.
WordPress Hints & Pointers
These are things I have learned in trying to upgrade our websites.
1. WordPress.org is better than wordpress.com
WordPress.com has the advantage of being free, but its development features are very limited unless you subscribe and pay.
WordPress.org is an open-source software, but you need to have a “hosting site” to store the websites. I am using Hostinger, which was highly recommended. When I create a website, I need to declare that I want to maintain it using WordPress, and from there, I have what I need.
The key is that if we do not renew the Hostinger account, then our websites will be at risk.
2. Creating a site. The key here is to acquire a URL for each site, and that has to be renewed (financially) every year or the URL (and the website) will be lost. Don’t forget to renew! I have not tried it yet, but one video suggested using namecheap.com to reserve a URL. I just do it through Hostinger. You can check to see if a website is available using “whois.com”
3. Using WordPress:
- There are a lot of options for developing websites with WordPress. One highly recommended option is called Elementor, but I did not have a great experience with it. The recommended template is “Astra.”
- Instead, I decided to use “Generate Blocks” and to use the template “Generate Press”, which seem to have worked very well. Other suggestions that I did not try are: Cadence, Stackable, and Greenshift. But generate blocks seems fine.
- Plug-ins are the key to WordPress. I was going crazy, was depressed, and really thought about throwing in the towel when I was developing sites on WordPress.com because the darned Gutenberg editor was so limited. Ug. But with a lot of work and watching YouTube videos, I learned about the great plugins that really have been a boon and got me past my really bad feelings about WordPress. Here are essential plug-ins that everyone who is doing a data-intensive website like we need for Genealogy should include. I’m sure I will find more over time, but these are essential.
- FileBird Lite: Organize thousands of WordPress media files into folders/ categories at ease. Note: Use “Screen Options” at top of page to increase # of pages per screen.
- Classic Editor (!!!): Enables the WordPress classic editor and the old-style Edit Post screen with TinyMCE, Meta Boxes, etc. Supports the older plugins that extend this screen.
- Duplicate Page: Duplicate Posts, Pages and Custom Posts using single click.
- GenerateBlocks: A small collection of lightweight WordPress blocks that can accomplish nearly anything.
- Simple Page Ordering: Order your pages and hierarchical post types using drag and drop on the built-in page list. For further instructions, open the “Help” tab on the Pages screen.