The Menges Family History Pages

NOTE: This section (About Menges) is in the process of being revised.

The Menges/Mangus homepage was created for the publication of various Menges/Mangus family group data [See: Meet My Families-Menges], for the telling of the Menges family history and for the purpose of catching the attention and interest of Menges descendants and researchers as they surf the Web looking for a family connection. Whether you have Menges in your line or not, feel free to search the various lines for a related ancestor. All we ask is should you not find a Menges mentioned on this site, and later find something on another website, is to let us know that website so we can check it out and add a link to it. We hope you can make a connection here somewhere. We also encourage any family member who wishes to add family data to do so by forwarding material either by e-mail or by regular mail to the webmaster’s home address. The homepage is concerned mainly with the Menges families from Erbach, Hessen, Germany and follows those immigrants as they settled in Rockland Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, and later when they followed the great migration westward to Turbot Township, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, the Town of Fayette, Seneca County, New York, Raisin Township, Lenawee County, Michigan and Portland Township, Huron County, Ohio. The source of the historical data presented here is The Descendants of Conrad Menges, 1749 Immigrant To Philadelphia, compiled by Harriet K. Stahl and John M. Mangus, Windmill Publications, Inc., Mt. Vernon, Indiana, 1991.

Before we get into the actual history of the Menges clan, I would like to take a few minutes to explain the Menges names and its variant spellings. If you are descended from the Germanic Menges family, then we are all cousins, no matter how your name is spelled: Menges/Mangas/Manges/Mangus/Minges/Mingos and the endless other spellings. These are merely variant spellings due, for the most part, to phonetic spelling used in the United States in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. In those days, it really did not matter how a name was spelled, as long as it was pronounced the same or nearly the same as the original. In Germany and in eastern Pennsylvania, the name Menges is pronounced, MENG-ES. Never MENG-GES with the addition of an extra "g." The stem or root of the name goes back to an ancient Germanic tribe called the Meng and no doubt any German name beginning with Meng or just Meng itself, belongs to the same broad group as the Menges. So for simplicity, we will refer to this surname as Menges/Mangus except when the exact spelling is known.

Care should be used when working with some of these variant spellings as they are not used solely by those with Germanic origins. Remember, these names are strictly American concoctions and have nothing to do with European families as such. There are, for instance, no Mangus families in Europe, and when the people in Bath, Ohio tell you they have the family coat of arms for Mangus, they are really making fraudulent statements. In the Rochester, NY area you will find Italians whose name was originally Manguso or something similar, who have changed it to the Mangus spelling. There was also a Pasquale "Patsy" Manguso who lived in Bradford, Pennsylvania who used the Mangus spelling for his name. Mangas Coloradas, meaning chief red sleeves in Spanish, c. 1797-1863, chief of the Mimbrenos group of Apache Indians of southwest New Mexico, had a son who changed the family name to Mangus. Thus you have American Indians wondering how they are related to the German Mangus and Menges. So do be careful and do not assume that all Mangus or others using variant spellings are related. I can only speak for the Mangus group, but I imagine there are other non-Germanic family groups using other Menges variant spellings.

Researchers should also be made aware that there is a Yugoslavian village of Menges, located only fifteen kilometers distant from the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana. "Menges is situated at the edge of the extensive fertile Menges’s field, under miraculous Alps, not far from the airport of Ljubljana. Together with three nearest villages, Menges has six thousand inhabitants. Menges has been first mentioned in 1154. The excavations from the Halstadt, Laten and Roman era tell us a lot about strong pottery and metallurgic handicraft. The first settlement arose close to the former Roman road connecting Emona and Celeia. At the 14^th milepost the Roman Station AD quatro decimo had been situated. Despite the restless times in the migration period and in early Middle Ages, settlement operated under mighty influence and guardianship of the church, dedicated to St. Michael, and the castle fortification based on the nearest hill Gobavica, built in the 8^th century by the Duke of Mango." So here we have another "Menges" reference that has absolutely no connection to the Germanic Menges.