![\"Katey](\"https:\/\/e-gen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/220px-Katey_Sagal_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg\")
<\/a>Katey Sagal
actress & singer-songwriter<\/p><\/div>\n
No sooner had I settled into bed one evening than the phone rang. It was our neice Diana, all excited about what she was seeing on television, specifically \u201cWho do you thing you are?\u201d on The Learning Channel (TLC).<\/em> The program tease was something to the effect that popular Hollywood actress Katey Sagal has Amish roots in our Somerset County. I must confess that while I remember Al Bundy from the TV series \u201cMarried with Children,\u201d I couldn\u2019t have told you the wife\u2019s name, on the show or in real life. Likewise, I wasn\u2019t familiar with her other professional accomplishments. Some of Diana\u2019s enthusiasm must have rubbed off on me through the phone because I couldn\u2019t get back to sleep that night. I got out of bed and headed for the computer. Fortunately, I was able to find most of what I needed through Google and print it out before going back to bed.<\/p>\n Wouldn\u2019t you know it, the next morning I received an e-mail from my wife Susan\u2019s Wyoming cousin Cindy, equally excited about having seen the show and knowing that she too is related to Katie Sagal. After breakfast I got back on the computer and found some additional biographical information, but more importantly, several clips from the show. We don\u2019t get The Learning Channel<\/em>, nor could I find the entire program on Roku,<\/em> our streaming service, but I hurriedly shared what information I had with Diana and Cindy. About a week later one of Susan\u2019s high school friends and distant cousin, Karen, eagerly said that she too had seen the show and wanted in on the information. More recently, other of Susan’s relatives have informed us that they too had watched the episode. I had no idea that such an obscure series, one about genealogy no less, had such a following. So, now that some time has passed since the show aired and I\u2019ve done some additional research, I conclude that Katey Sagal and Susan, as well as Cindy, Karen, and the other relatives are bona fide cousins, albeit very distant. Not only that, but there are as many as five chains of connections over the 250 years between the their seven-times great grandfather Jacob Hochstetler, Jr. (1704-1776) and the 21st century cousins. In this article I\u2019ll briefly tell you what I know, show you a few of those family lines in writing, and link you to my sources.<\/p>\n “Katey” Segal<\/p><\/div>\n Catherine Louise \u201cKatey\u201d Sagal was born in 1954 in Los Angeles, one of five children to a show business couple: director Boris Sagal and performer \u201cSara Macon\u201d Zwilling. Their home was in Brentwood, unfortunately associated with an athlete-entertainer bad boy, O.J. Simpson. Her Ukranian-born father Boris died tragically in 1981 in an accident on the set of the TV-movie World War III.<\/em> Katey\u2019s godfather is an American sit-com household name, Norman Lear, and Jewish as was her father. Katey claims no \u201cformal religious experience,\u201d but is rather only \u201cculturally Jewish,\u201d according to Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\n The recent TLC<\/em> program featured Katey\u2019s mother, who began as a child radio star, singing with a USO-produced show during World War II. A writer and producer, she died of heart disease. When introduced to one of her mother\u2019s singing partners, Katey was filled with emotion, saying, \u201cI never met anyone who knew my mother.\u201d But we\u2019ll talk about the best part, the Amish roots, in a minute.<\/p>\n Katey is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, and her accomplishments are many: winner of a Golden Globe for the FX production of Sons of Anarchy<\/em>\u00a0(2011), the voice of Leela in the sci-fi cartoon Futurama<\/em> (1999-2003), and starring with John Ritter in 8 Simple Rules<\/em> (2008-2013), to name a few. Her TV credits include episodes of Columbo<\/em>, Mary Tyler Moore<\/em>, Tucker<\/em>, Lost<\/em>, and of course, the decade-long running Married with Children,<\/em> in which she played the infamous Peg Bundy.<\/p>\n Peg Bundy<\/p><\/div>\n Her personal life has almost as many chapters. She is the mother of three children and has been married four times, now since 2004 to Hollywood writer Kurt Sutter. If any of this information surprises you, imagine how Katey must have felt in learning that she has Amish roots. Indeed, surprise is the whole premise of TLC\u2019<\/em>s \u201cWho do you think you are?\u201d, tracing the genealogy of famous people, often uncovering the unknown. According to the show\u2019s publicist Danielle Maitlin:<\/p>\n Katey uncovers the harrowing story of her Amish seven-times great-grandfather, Jacob Hochstetler, whose family was caught up in tensions between Native Americans and Colonial settlers. Katey learns that Jacob remained true to his pacifist beliefs and refused to bear arms against his assailants.<\/em><\/p>\n Susan Miller Pearce at PA historical marker for the “Hochstetler Massacre,” Shartlesville (1757)<\/p><\/div>\n You can read all about what has become known as the 1757 \u201cHochstetler Massacre\u201d<\/a> at this site. The incident was part of the French & Indian War. Jacob\u2019s wife Anna was killed and scalped along with a son and daughter. The family cabin was burned to the ground. According to the story, Jacob and sons Joseph and Christian were taken captive but either escaped or were released. As we\u2019ll see, My wife Susan is a direct descendant of Jacob and another member of the Berks County Amish community, Hannes Miller. He became known as \u201cIndian John\u201d from a wound he received as the raiding party was retreating. Virtually all of that Amish community soon emigrated west to safer havens like Lancaster and Somerset Counties to escape both the ethnic unrest and the threat of enlistment by the Colonial powers.<\/p>\n Katey and the production crew visited both the Berks County History Center<\/a> in Reading and the site of the Hochstetler misfortune in Tilden Township. Susan and I did the same during a recent trip East this spring.<\/p>\n Now, as I promised, the family tree that includes Katey Sagal and Susan Miller Pearce. Below are what I call “Chain 1,” the most direct common lines between Jacob Hochstetler and the 21st century cousins that we might call the “Sibling association,” and “Chain 2,” which I refer to as the “In-law linkage.” Both chains begin with the two common generations of Jacob Hochstetler<\/a> to Christian Stutzman.<\/a> We’ll discuss three other less-direct connections later, which we may refer to as “Cousin connections.” Chain 1 separates after Christian Stutzman with his daughters Veronica and Mary: Katey’s Peter J. Miller who married Mary Stutzman, had a brother, Christian Miller<\/a>, nick-named “Glades” for the east-central part of Somerset County containing the family homestead, and from there Chain 1 shows several arguable links to Susan. Research is ongoing to confirm what we believe. What is especially interesting (see notes) about Susan’s Miller-Baer families is that the Millers may have come from at least three different ancestral lines, all within as few as four generations.<\/p>\n Our second chain, called the In-law linkage, is very strong because we know that “Indian John’s” youngest daughter Elizabeth<\/a>, Peter J’s sister, married Joseph Christoph(er) Speicher, Jr., and they were Susan’s three-times great-grandparents on her mother’s side: Katey, the versatile entertainer<\/p><\/div>\n In conclusion, the most direct connection from cousins Katey Sagal and Susan Miller Pearce to seven-times Great-grandparents Jacob and Anna Hochstetler is labeled above \u201cChain #1,\u201d but unfortunately, it contains several weak links on Susan\u2019s side. However, with three additional possible chains involving Peter J. Miller\u2019s ancestors and Susan (see notes on each chain) and what I call the \u201cIn-law linkage” involving Peter\u2019s sister Elizabeth (see Chain #2), I think it\u2019s safe to say that Katey Sagal and Susan Miller Pearce are distant cousins, both descendants of Jacob and Anna Hochstetler of the 1757 Berks County \u201cHochstetler Massacre\u201d fame. Our research into those confessed connectional weakness on Susan\u2019s side will continue, and perhaps one day we\u2019ll be able to share definitively who the mystery Millers are.<\/p>\n Documentation:<\/p>\n \u201cActress traces her bloody roots to Berks.\u201d Reading Eagle<\/em>. 17 April 2016 http:\/\/www.readingeagle.com\/news\/article\/actress-traces-her-bloody-roots-to-berks<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cKatey Sagal.\u201d IMDb.com.<\/em> 23 April 2016 http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0005408\/<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cKatey Sagal.\u201d Wikipedia.com.<\/em> 23 April 2016 https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Katey_Sagal<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cKatey Sagal.\u201d Who do you think you are? The Learning Channel.<\/em> 3 April 2016 https:\/\/www.discoverygo.com\/who-do-you-think-you-are\/katey-sagal\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Larry Pearce 5\/10\/16 No sooner had I settled into bed one evening than the phone rang. It was our neice Diana, all excited about what she was seeing on television, specifically \u201cWho do you thing you are?\u201d on The … Continue reading <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>Mary Stutzman \u00a0m. Peter J. Miller<\/a>,\u00a0son of Hannes \u201cIndian John\u201d Miller, grandfather on both Susan\u2019s maternal and fraternal sides. The Millers \u00a0moved from Berks to Somerset County and this is where Katey\u2019s and Susan\u2019s lines separate. Katey\u2019s Abraham Miller married Maria Saylor and Jacob A. Miller married Rebecca Horner. We pause here to say that Susan has distant cousins from both these early Somerset County\u00a0Saylor<\/a> and Horner<\/a> families, which suggests those three additional “Cousin connections” mentioned above. Katey’s final four generations took her ancestors from the American Mid-west to the West Coast.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>