"Letter of August 27, 1962, from Pastor Gerhard Niemann of the Lutheran Church at Duehren:
Dear Mr. Long,
When I recently entered upon my pastoral service in Duehren I soon discovered a letter that you wrote ca January 2, 1959 to Dr. Schwab of Sinsheim. At that time Dr. Schwab probably forwarded it to our pastoral office here for an answer to be worked out here, but my predecessor then neglected the matter. Do not therefore be too much annoyed if you have not received a reply before this.
For quite a while I have occupied myself with your matter and was also able to find out some things. Let us start out with Johannes Schwab. From the Lutheran pastor's office at Leimen I was able to get an extract from the register of births from the year 1704, aocording to which this Johannes was baptized May 28, 1704 in Leimen. Since on account of infant mortality at the time it was customary to baptize no later than the second day after birth, he was born, therefore, on May 26 or 27, 1704. The parents were Jost Schwab and his wife, Anna Katharina. I enolose the certified extract.
Jost (i.e., Justus) Schwab, designated ,,Schwaben zu Duehren bei Sinsheim" in the ancient records, really turns up in our oldest church record-book. He was married May 17, 1681 to Anna Katharina Wolfhart.
From this marriage issued the following children:
l. Hans Joerg, born July 19, 1682 in Duehren.
2. Jost Conrad, born April 29, 1687 in Duehren.
3. Jost Conrad, born January 11, 1690 in Duehren.
4. Anna Elisabeth, born Octobor 10, 1692 in Duehren.
5. Anna Magdalena, born April 11, 1697 in Duehren.
6. Maria, born October 9, 1698 in Duehren.
7. Johannes, born about May 27, 1704 in Leimen.
8. Hans Ulrich, born about October 20, 1707 in Leimen.
Therefore, Jost Schwab lived in Duehren from 1681 till about 1700. From then on the name Schwab disappeared in Duehren. Only in the year 1702 a citi- and master-baker, Albrecht Schwab, is named as godfather in our church archives.. This is probably a brother of Jost Schwab.
One more thing about this Jost: you write that he lived from 1678 on. That cannot be right, as he already married in 1681. Where did you get this date, anyhow?
George Schwab was the father of Jost.. He was a citzen and councilman in the year 1681 in Sinsheim. Unfortunately, I was not able to find out
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anything in Sinsheim about this Georg Schwab - neither the dates of his birth and marriage nor anything about his wife, for in the so-called War of the Palatine Succession (Liselotte of the Palatinate!) Sinsheim was, as well as Heidelberg, totally destroyed, and in the process all the ancient records were also lost (burned).
According to your letter this father of Jost Schwab is supposed to have been a Buergermeister in Leimen.(see page 1305) It would very much interest me to know where you got that information. For in the ,,Contributions to the Local History of the Community of Leimen" by Georg Ludwig Menzer, the sequence of Buergermeister of Leimen is set forth, but no Schwab is mentioned. Therein, it is only mentioned that in 1702 Jost Schwab moved from Sinsheim to Leimen and was immediately at the age of 46 - so he was born in 1655 - enrolled as a citizen (elector).
So that was all I could find out about the Schwabs. It was no easy job to dig up all I did. On the other hand, much more might be reported about the mother of Johannes Schwab, the Anna Katharina nee Wolffhart. If you were also interested in that, you should let me know by another letter, and then I'll do it. Her father was Buergermeister in Duehren. Her grandfather was pastor in Duehren, and her great-grandfather was the Lutheran abbot of the Alpirsbach cloister in the Black Forest and Councilor to the Duke of Wuerttemberg (around the year 1600). In our oldest church record book there is a hand written diary of thirteen pages by the Pastor Wolffhart covering the year 1664!
Regarding Duehren the following may be said: it's a very old place! Archaeological remains from the pre-Christian era (celtic graves), excavation of a Roman villa that dates from 300 B.C., ,,villa Durmina" in 769 A.D., first church built in 827, Lutheran since 1552. There is a book of regional history concerning Duehren by Prof. Karl Schumacher, Ph.D., director of the Romano-Germanic Central Museum of Mainz. About fifteen houses four hundred years old are still standing here. The church was set afire in 1945 by fire from the American tanks and thereby destroyed. (Don't interpret this as a complaint). Nevertheless, the magnifcent Choir room from the year 1494 (Gothicc style of architecture) with all the valuable paintings on the ceiling that date from the same year are intact. In this Choir in 1681 Jost Schwab was married to his Anna Katharina.
I remain at your disposition for further advice, to the degree that I can obtain such information for you, and remain with kindest regards,
Yours,
Gerhard Niemann, Pastor

(Editorial note: It is unclear if the followingis an entry from the churchbook, or an addition by the transcriber in the Source Swope Book of Remembrance)
Churchbook in Duehren near Sinsheim: Churchbook in Leimen:
George Schwab was the father of Jost Schwab. He was born about 1610, married about 1630, and died after 1681 and before 1689.
Margaretta (Zimerman) Schwab, widow of George Schwab, councilor. She died 17 March 1695, age 82 years. "

Source Information;
Emily Swope Morse and Winifred Morse McLachlan, "THE SWOPE FAMILY BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE, A History of the Origins of the First Schwab, Schwob, Swope Families  in Early Lancaster County, Pennsylvania  and  Some of Their Descendants" pub.1972.  300 limited editions., -
The SWOPE FAMILY BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE was was issued in two volumes:
Volume One consisted of nine parts with a separate index and covered the ancestry and descendants of Jakob SCHWOB, emigrant fro Bennwil, Baselland, Switzerland to Lebanon Township, Lancaster, (now Lebanon) County, Pennsylvania in 1749. VOLUMEÝTWO
Ancestry and some Descendants of Jost Schwab, Emigrant from Leimen, Baden, Germany to Leacock Township, Chester (now Lancaster) County, Pennsylvania in 1720.