The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: VA
Qualifying Service: Patriotic Service
As is commonly encountered in studying ancestors immigrating to the USA in the distant past, it is noted the original name may have been Schartz, Schoritz, Sheritz, Scheritz, Shertz, Schwartz, or some variation of the spelling. The family name was spelled by English clerks according to how it sounded or what was easy and therefore became Short.
An Andreas Swartz arrived in the port of Philadelphia on Oct 16, 1727 aboard the good ship Friendship having begun the cross Atlantic Ocean journey from Rotterdam. He had been married to a woman named Esther, who had born him a son named Christian, who completed the journey with him. It is not certain whether Esther died before Andreas and son Christian began the voyage or possibly died in transit. In any event, she was not on board ship on its arrival in the new world. Also on board the ship was his brother Abraham, who settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and became Bishop of the Mennonite Church there.
Andreas married Barbara Stauffer soon after arrival in late 1727 or early 1728 and settled in Salford Township in Philadelphia County (today Franconia and Lower Salford Township are located in Montgomery County). There he farmed to provide for their large family of ten children including Jacob Schwartz/Short (1739-1805) and Andreas Schwartz Jr. (1742-1817), both of whom were said to be patriots of the Revolutionary War. He was naturalized at the Supreme Court held in Philadelphia Nov 13, 1743. He purchased land in Salford County, which he farmed until his death in 1766 (one source says 1781) having become blind about 1748. Following this, he was aided by his family in working the farm and his ministerial duties.
Other sources have Jacob Schwartz/Short being born in the German Rhineland in the early 1740’s, immigrating either alone or with his parents, and settling in what is now Berkley, West Virginia. Records and record keeping being what they were for that time and circumstances make it almost impossible to verify these theories. There are other kindred’s of immigrant Shorts originating in the British Isles, who are all together aside from this one.
Jacob Short is the Patriot this membership is anchored upon, as recognized in Virginia Revolutionary Publick Claims, Vol. II, pg. 659, Janice L. Abercrombie and Richard Slatten, by providing food for the military.
Given the record keeping of the time and resulting confusion in the original family name, Jacob Short is our earliest known Short. He married Eve Gottschalk about 1769 and first settled in Fredrick County, Virginia (now Berkley County, West Virginia) where John Short was born in 1770. Jacob Jr. was born in 1772. They moved to Botetourt County, Virginia in the area around Fincastle sometime before their daughter Catherine was born in 1774. Here they completed their family of seven children with Catherine being born in 1774, Eve in 1775, Susannah in 1777, David in 1779, George Washington in 1785, and Samuel T. in 1792.
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
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Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.