The abridged version of Mrs. Milligan’s Christian Metzger: Founder of An American Family 1682-1942, known among the family as the Red Book, is now available in its third printing as The History of the Christian Metzger Family: From the Reformation to World War II.

Mrs. Milligan spent approximately 40 years compiling the history of the Christian Metzger family from six generations before Christian’s birth to eight generations after his arrival in Philadelphia in 1752 and subsequent migration to Zionsville in 1757 where he built a mill. Mrs. Milligan’s “Red Book” was published in the typewritten font in which she wrote, with supplements and revisions until 1950.

The original work has been typeset and expanded. Supplemental material has been arranged chronologically for five of eight generations. Maps have been added with an index of places. Cemeteries and burial grounds are now indexed as are religious items of interest and selected stories such as the founding of Dover, Ohio, the settlement and naming of Strasburg, Ohio, the naming of Churubusco, Indiana, and the oral histories of movements to Westmoreland County and the Far West, eventually to California. In addition to an index of family members, every other person mentioned in this volume is also indexed as well as contributors to this volume. Links to Mrs. Milligan’s sources have been added as available.

This abridgment thus presents a more accessible and continuous history of this American family founded by a German immigrant who came to America while young and single to seek adventure.

6″ x 9″, 316 pages