From Germany to Appalachia

The origins of the Hyder family are in Germany, in the village of Glashütten, Oberfranken, in what is now northern Bavaria but what then may have been the Principality of Beyreuth in the Holy Roman Empire. On 17 August 1729 Hans Michael Hyder (6 June 1704, Glashütten—30 April 1776, Lincoln, North Carolina) and Katherine Chasteen Hyder (c 1708- c 1746) boarded a ship called the Mortonhouse for America, leaving Rotterdam in the Netherlands and arriving some time later in Philadelphia. From there they moved to North Carolina, with subsequent generations settling along the Appalachian frontier between North Carolina and what would later become Tennessee, especially Carter County in the latter state.

My grandmother, Frances Marie, was born a Hyder in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, in 1904. Her parents were Nelson Hyder (1875-1959) and Lucy Jane Bentley Hyder (1875-1948), of whom my mother has fond memories. Nelson is Hans Michael and Katherine's 3rd great-grandson. They lived in Big Stone Gap where ten children were born to them, two of whom died in infancy. In 1914 or 1915 they moved to a farm near Adrian, Lenawee County, Michigan, to be near Nelson's mother Mary Hyder Shepherd (1844-1925) and her husband David Shepherd (1849-after 1925). There two more children were born to them.

In future posts I will be exploring the genealogical roots of my great-grandparents, whom I never met but who left many descendants throughout North America. Stay tuned.