Geho Surname

The Souhrada Family Website

GEHO Surname

By Karen Souhrada

Geho is an early Pennsylvania surname later linked in time with my Hagerty ancestors. Research has shown that there were early GEHO folks who settled among the Schwenkfelder religious sect in the general area of Philadelphia to Lehigh County areas of Pennsylvania. The Schwenkfelder’s were an Anabaptist sect arising in the Silesia area; referenced …as an “area of Europe which is now in Southwestern Poland. Germany ceded this province to Poland after WW II. The area borders present day Germany and the Czech Republic.” [Source: "Genealogical Record of the Schwenkfelder Families 1731-1737", edited by Samuel Brecht]

We know that there were three Geho brothers, Adam, Jacob and Mathias; the last of whom married the daughter of a noted Schwenkfelder family by the surname of Yeakel. Anna Yeakel was the great-granddaughter of David Yeakel who is recorded as a passenger on the ship list of St. Andrew; bound from Altona, Denmark (on June 21, 1734), to Plymouth, Massachusetts (landing on September 22, 1734.) This David Yeakel, at an advanced age and along with his surviving adult children, then moved to the Macungie, Pennsylvania area in the company of forty other families, according to the above referenced Schwenkfelder book.

Mathias Geho was recorded as having been born 1772 in Hosensack, Pennsylvania. Adam, the eldest was reportedly born in 1764, in either the territory of Maryland or what was to become a part of Pennsylvania, and the youngest brother in 1775, assumed in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, it is not known who their parents were; where the brothers Adam and Jacob were actually born, and where the family lived during the youthful years of the brothers.

We surmise that the GEHO surname comes from Europe, in the area of their Schwenkfelder associates, and that they too immigrated to the new country of America sometime before the War of Independence. Mathias Geho chose to remain in the Lehigh County area of Pennsylvania; along with his many descendants. Adam eventually made his way to the southwestern part of that state, settling at times in Greene and Washington Counties; which place he supposedly died. This is our direct ancestor and the last trace we have of him is recorded in the 1850 census, East Pike Run Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania. Adam Geho is shown as being in his 86^thyear, a widow, living in the home of his son John Geho. Of the youngest brother Jacob, nothing more is known than his probable year of birth in early Pennsylvania.

Kezia GEHO Hagery (1828-1905)

Granddaughter of Adam Geho

To view our Geho surname index, click here > Geho surname index