A Touch of Bach in Wisconsin and Beyond, Volume No. 1: The Stump, the Shoot, and the Waugh Branches

After a legacy of more than two centuries as famous Bach musicians in Thuringia, Germany, members of the family of Friedrich Nikolaus Bach make the first migrations to America, starting in 1840s. One son, Fred Bach, with his wife and children, plus three children of a daughter, ventured into the wilderness deep inside the interior of Wisconsin. This journey of adventure takes them to the Lewiston Township of Columbia County, Wisconsin. There they would establish new farm homesteads near the portage between the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, not far from the abandoned military Fort Winnebago.

Our family in Germany had records of Bach migrants to the Lewiston area, mostly through Nancy Bach Hertzog, a descendant of that group. We had fewer records of Johann Christoph Bach, the first migrant who died abruptly in a place called Batavia. He became a forgotten man. Imagine the great joy and excitement in our greater Bach family in Germany when we learned that his only surviving child, Brigitta Sophia Bach, had children and grandchildren who later would also establish homesteads in Columbia County, south of Portage in Dekorra Township.

That discovery came about through our www.BachonBach.com website, and the discovery of our new "cousin" Donovan. He is one of the many Dekorra descendants of our Bach families in America, a group of descendants which in number may soon reach 1000 or more.

This book, Volume No. 1, touches the lives of the large Waugh branch of musical Bach descendants. Our goal is to foster follow-up editions which will focus on the Hebel families of the Dekorra group, and the families of the large Lewiston Bach group. With this series, we hope to discover more about "who we are" by learning about "who we were."

About the Author

Dr. Donovan L. Waugh was a farm boy who went to the University of Wisconsin, studying soil science. His goal was to help developing countries improve their food production in a future predicted in 1955 to have famine of Biblical proportions.

He worked with research, development projects and teaching in Latin America, Wisconsin and Arizona, covering professional work which spanned 60 years.

He began the research into his Bach connection at the age of 80.