John Gergen’s Family Tree

The Names of John Gergen is a social history and biography, not a work of genealogy. Still, family relationships were important to the formation of John’s identity and the cohesion of the Banat Swabian community that he was a part of. I have linked below a genealogical chart that shows the relationships constituting John Gergen’s extended family.

A caveat:

When researching and analyzing immigrant communities, genealogy has limited value–especially its traditional forms, which emphasize ancestry and lines of descent. After all, older generations of extended families seldom migrated, nor did immigrants often inherit property in the homeland. Futhermore, the second generation–that is, the generation born in the host country–typically developed identities rooted in the culture of the host country, so that they were culturally distinct from their forebears. Consequently, the most important relationships to develop among immigrants were within the cohort: brothers, sisters, siblings-in-law, cousins, and friends.

Later, I’ll post about a new model of family relationships that is more adept at explaining what I call familial communities–the extensive network of families that emerged among Banat Swabian immigrants in St. Louis and other industrial American cities. For now, the attached diagram may be helpful in navigating the familial reltionships that appear in the book.