The Beeker Family of North Carolina
Exciting News: Dec 2023! I have written a huge e-book about the Beecher Etc. Families (Beecher, Beacher, Beicher, Biecher, Bicher, Beechert, Beeker, Beher, or Buecher ) that will be registered with the The Library of Congress and distributed FREE on Google Books, Amazon Books, from libraries, etc. It includes lots of evidence, documents, etc. It also details how Henry Beeker migrated from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. If you would like to know everything about the family right now, just email Jonathan Scott Beacher at SearchTrees@gmail.com and I will send you a link to preview it online now. Let me know the name of your ancetor. It includes the report I commissioned from our professional genealogist in Germany.
Y-DNA testing has proven that the Beeker families found in Rowan and Davidson counties in North Carolina in the late 1700s are exactly related to a Beecher family that immigrated into Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1751 using their German surname, Buecher (aka Bücher). These Pennsylvania German Beechers were sometimes recorded as Beeker or Beaker in early Pennsylvania census records, suggesting the German pronunciation of their original German surname was hard for English census takers to understand and spell. Y-DNA tests prove that the living descendants of these immigrants today use surnames Beeker, Beher, Beecher, Beicher, Biecher, Bicher, Beacher, and Beechert.
The first Beeker male tested in 2015 was descended through Henry’s son Henry Beeker Jr. who remained in North Carolina. A second Y-DNA test in 2017 descended through Henry Beeker Sr.’s son John, who moved in 1812 to Indiana, matched exactly the first Beeker test on 67 Y-DNA markers.
Both male Beeker’s tests match exactly on all 67 markers the Y-DNA of a Henry Beecher who died in 1795 in Littlestown, Adams County, Pennsylvania.
Y-DNA is only passed from a father to his sons, so Y-DNA tests are only performed on males and test only a male’s father’s father’s father’s etc. line — the parentage of his surname. Unlike generalized autosomal tests (like the Ancestry.com DNA test) which show recent cousins, a Y-DNA test can find matches back thousands of years and identify any males who share a common male ancestor in their father’s father’s etc. line.
Another confirmation came when Ben Beeker visited the North Carolina archives last year, to inspect the original will of Henry Beeker Sr. and noted Henry’s signature is “Bücher.”
With these clues in hand, we discovered that Henry Beeker Sr. of North Carolina was baptized in 1759 in West Cocalico Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and we learned his childhood friend there, John Billing, moved with his father Doctor John Billing to North Carolina. John Billing then sold his land grant obtained from North Carolina to his friend, Henry Beeker.
I have written a new online book which you can read that has a tremendous amount of info and evidence about Henry Beeker. Email searchtrees@gmail.com and I’ll send it to you for free.
You can also read our web page about Henry Beeker here:
If you know a living Beeker male who wishes to take the Y-DNA test, see below, and also see our project at FamilyTreeDNA.com/groups/bucher
There is a lot more info on this on this site on our Pennsylvania Beecher page.
If you are researching Henry Beeker’s son John Beeker who moved to Indiana, we have a large PDF research document of interest you may download