William Keener

Contents 1 Biography 2 Genealogy 3 Current Projects 4 Published Work 5 Recommendations

Biography

An amateur historian and genealogist, rusty mathematician, and writer and editor with a quarter century of experience in software engineering and operations management, software technical support, and global knowledge management for a Fortune 100 company, William is the author of an updated second-edition (2019) philosophical and historical narrative about the Kühner (Keener) family in America and several related books.

Genealogy

A direct descendant (sixth great grandson) of Gasper (Casper) Kühner (Keener) (1680–1762), one of the “honored heroes who subdued the foes of husbandry in a wild unsettled region” of the North Carolina Backcountry during the mid-18th century (Alfred Nixon, 1908) William has connected to his oldest known (but currently unsourced) ancestor, Melcher Rychen (b. 1555) (an 11th great grandfather), using WikiTree. In addition to Casper Keener, Wilhelm's paternal ancestors include a number of other 18th century Palatine emigrates and German-speaking "Pennsylvania Dutch" who were the first colonial settlers in the Catawba River Valley — including the following:

• Christopher "Stoffel" Moll aka Mull - a seventh greatgrandfather who is believed to have arrived in Pennsylvania in 1731 and settled on the South Fork of the Catawba River between 1750-53.
• Hans Peter (Eaker) Egger - an eighth great-grandfather and one of the first colonial settlers in what would later become the Tryon district of North Carolina, and whose land would be the home of the Eaker school (one of the first schools in the Tryon district).
• Johann Nicholas Warlick, a sixth great-grandfather and Tory captain (like Abraham Keener, Casper's son and William's fifth great grandfather), who participated in the Battle of Ramsour's Mill (which took place on the farm of Christian Reinhardt, William's sixth great grand uncle).
• Heinrich (Henry) Summerauer (Summerow), a sixth great grandfather and the father of a miller of the same name at Ramsour's Mill.
• Peter Finger - a sixth greatgrandfather and brother-in-law of Christian Reinhardt who arrived in Pennsylvania in 1749, was naturalized in Annapolis, Maryland in 1762 (apparently accompanied by Melchior Keener and his son, John), then moved to the North Carolina Backcounty in 1777-78 and purchased 120 acres from Abraham Keener in Anson (now Lincoln) County.
• Georg Heinrich (Henry) Weidner (Whitener) - a sixth great grandfather who is believed to have immigrated to Pennsylvania prior to 1725 and migrated to the North Carolina Backcountry by 1750 and was naturalized in Salisbury in 1753.
• Johann Nicholas Schramm (Shrum) - a sixth great grandfather who arrived in Pennsylvania in 1738 and migrated to Old Lincoln County, North Carolina around 1767.
• Henry Hallman, Jr. - a fifth great grandfather and the grandson of Henrich Heilman, a German-speaking immigrant in Pennsylvania.
• Michael Müller (Miller) - a fifth great grandfather and the father-in-law of John Keener, Sr (a fourth grand grandfather).

Of course William's not "pure" German, or Lutheran. His most recent paternal ancestors were Methodists, and his Reformed (Congregationalist) mother - who descended from Presbyterian Scots-Irish ancestors - had him catechized as an "Utterly Confused Christian" before he became a secular humanist. Some notable cousins he has connected to on WikiTree include Wilson Warlick (a fourth cousin three times removed and U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of N.C, from 1949 until 1978, nominated by Harry Truman) and two third cousins five times removed: David Schenck, a mid-level Confederate official and lawyer in secessionist North Carolina who was a son of the founder of the Schenck-Warlick Mill (the first cotton mill in NC), and Andrew Ramsour, a second great grandson of Johan Dietrich Rahmsauer (Derrick Ramsour of Ramsour’s Mill fame) and a Republican who was beaten by the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction and later built the Bunker Hill Covered Bridge in Claremont, N.C. and co-founded the Piedmont Wagon Company in Hickory, N.C. But as Paul Beatty says, “if you were in this area before Lake Norman, you’re kin.” 

Current Projects

““[T]he art of asking questions is more valuable than solving problems.” -  Georg Cantor

William is continuing to prune the "tangled thicket" of Kühner (Keener) Genealogie in Amerika and researching Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan violence in Catawba County and the Catawba County Confederate Soldiers Monument. William's second edition Keener family history narrative and a first edition annotated version of John Christian Keener's The Garden and Eden and The Flood are now available in both eBook and paperback formats.

Published Work

Wilhelm's Books

William has written the following books:

Buy Now!

A second edition narrative on Kühner (Keener) Genealogie in Amerika is now available in eBook and paperback format. A descendant of early German and Scots-Irish "settlers" in the North Carolina backcountry and a ninth generation resident of the Catawba River Valley, Wilhelm continues to prune the "tangled thicket" of Kühner (Keener) Genealogie an Amerika and uncover almost 300 years of muddy American history for this 18th and 19th century family of German immigrants, most of whom adopted the "Keener" surname in the "New World."

From the American Revolution and the Trail of Tears to the American Civil War and Reconstruction, from Jim Crow and lynching to the public menace of automobiles and the teaching of evolution in the 1920s, Wilhelm's reflections on the Keener family story "should motivate readers to examine their own values and better prepare them for the challenges facing their family, nation, and planet" (William Gay, UNC Charlotte). In this second edition narrative, readers are introduced to new characters and history as well as new insights in Kühner's ongoing effort to learn about, and from, what his German immigrant ancestors "left behind" (his heritage) in the "New World" as well as the ongoing relevance of their American history.

"William Keener's insights into his ancestors and their adopted homeland show us, once again, the potential genealogy has to inform history. He plunges into the kaleidoscope that is our early past and helps us learn how much the position of the lens matters. It's all in the focus and about the fractals to be discovered, as we continue to chronicle the story of the wondrous Catawba watershed." - Gary Freeze, Professor of History and American Cultural Studies at Catawba College.

Buy Now!

A short first edition eBook on Charles C. Overton's Christian Flag and its muddy history and ongoing relevance to us all, this philo-historical vexillology reintroduces Americans to S.M. Johnson’s forgotten “Christian conquest flag,” puts forth a bold new historical conjecture about Charles C. Overton's "Christian flag," shares a few still relevant philosophical conjectures about the human crisis that we continue to face today, and explains why the author has always been skeptical of political and religious catechisms - especially those requiring pledges or loyalty oaths which come wrapped in flags or wearing hoods and capes while carrying lit torches.

By one conservative estimate, a quarter of a million Christian churches display the so-called “Christian flag.” For some Christians, it’s an ecumenical symbol of religious unity that "has come to occupy a place of notoriety and distinction among Christians around the world" (Stephen Flick). To others, it represents a "one-world ecumenical universalism...that is contrary to Biblical Christianity, American Constitutionalism and plain common sense" (Greg Wilson). For others still, its a source of “strife and idolatry” (Micki Pulleyking) or the brunt of jokes about marauding crusaders (Martin E. Marty). And that’s just the most common opinions among Christians!

Buy Now!

Published on the 20th anniversary of the leak of the Discovery Institute’s “Wedge Document,” this annotated reprint of The Garden of Eden and The Flood (1901) by John Christian Keener frames the original in its historical context and offers unique insights about the ongoing relevance of a late 19th century “theological curiosity” (American Journal of Theology, 1901) by “one of the most remarkable men in the South” (Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1906).

From Mark Twain's proposed monument to Adam (the Biblical "first man") in Elmira, New York (1879) to the Ouija Board (1891) and the Christian conquest flag (1901), Kühner's use of proposed and actual historical artifacts from the period should help readers better understand this anti-evolution screed by a former Confederate chaplain and Methodist South Bishop as well as the larger cultural phenomena of cons, quackery, pseudoscience and disinformation that in many ways underpins our current political predicament in the United States.

Select Blogs and Op-Eds

William has written the following select op-eds:

• "One small step for humanity." Hickory Daily Record. July 21, 2019. Written on behalf of the Hickory Humanist Alliance.
• "Knowledge inspires awe, hope and positive action." Hickory Daily Record. July 7, 2019. Written on behalf of the Hickory Humanist Alliance.
• "Relocating without re-interpreting Confederate monuments a mistake." Hickory Daily Record. February 6, 2018.
• "Misinformed dissent against medical advice on immunizations." News & Observer. March 26, 2015. Written on behalf of the Secular Coalition for North Carolina.

William has written the following select blog posts:

• Alber Camus on 'The Human Crisis'
• Longing for “a solidly straight church”
• Joseph Graham’s Vesuvius Furnace
• The longleaf roots of the “Tar Heels”
• Pocahontas” and the Rorschach Inkblot Test at the Lincoln Memorial
• Ignorance and denial of the early 20th century pellagra epidemic in the South
• The Southern Mythology of “Uncle William” Mack Lee (1835–1930)
• The Battle of Ramsour’s Mill: An Annotated Online Bibliography
• Radical Republican attempts to “burlesque Southern society”
• Feyerabend v. Lakatos on “objective facts” in the “post-truth” era.

WikiTree Profiles

William has either written or contributed to the following select profiles on WikiTree:

• Casper Keener (connected) - a "Palatine Boor" (Benjamin Franklin, 1751) and Lutheran "among the honored heroes who subdued the foes of husbandry in a wild unsettled region” (Alfred Nixon, 1908).
• Melchior Keener (unconnected) - a man of "doubtful principles" (Maryland Council of Safety, 1771) and founder and first president of "the oldest civic organization in the United States" (The Baltimore Sun, 1963).
• Abraham Keener (connected) - a Tory who “made [his Whig friend] a prisoner and graciously spared his life,” and then had the favor returned (1780).
• Nicholas Haussegger (unconnected) - a native of Hanover who came to Amerika to fight for the British during the French and Indian War, then placed in command of the German Battalion in the American Revolutionary War until he was taken prisoner at Assunpink Creek over dubious allegations of desertion.
• Ulrich Keener (connected) - an "argumentative, yet fluent" (in English and Cherokee, perhaps German) resident Methodist missionary in the Qualla Boundary twenty years after the Indian Removal Act (1850).
• Monroe Graham (unconnected) - a “small boy” born in Africa around 1800, who was brought to Charleston, S. C. and sold as a slave to “a Mr. Keener,” he was the last known African-born resident of Lincoln County, North Carolina (1895).
• Sena Keener (Caldwell) (unconnected) - a "mulatto" woman "raised" and enslaved by Henry Keener, sold to John Motz, then E. Caldwell, from whom she escaped (1849).
• Charles C. Overton (unconnected) - a "Wide Awake" Congregationalist who created cultural agitation before the war (1856) and an ecumenical "Christian flag" (1897) afterwards.
• Joseph Keener (unconnected) - a Cherokee man who fled Rebel conscription by his own tribe in Oklahoma and joined a Kansas volunteer infantry regiment (1861) to help end slavery in Amerika.
• Andy Ramsour (connected) - “a harmless, inoffensive citizen, an industrious man, and a man of some property" whose "only offense, so far as is known, was that he is a Republican” (NC Lt. Gov. Tod E. Caldwell, 1870).
• Sallie Wilfong Ramseur Schenck - "a pure woman" and third-cousin of Andy Ramsour with "so much divinity...that [she] was holy, heavenly, lovely" to young David Schenck, who longed to be a Ramsour.
• Elijah Bond (unconnected) - an attorney and insurance agent who first patented the "talking board" (1890) that became famous as a harmless parlor game, or an occult tool of the Devil depending on whether you believe in actual history or pop mythology.
• George Washington Keener (connected) - a livery stable owner and a "real curiosity" (1892) whose 20th century dream of going into the aviation business went up in flames (1901).
• John Christian Keener (unconnected) - a Confederate chaplain and Methodist Bishop who located "the wide plain about and near the city of Charleston, South Carolina...[as] the region of 'delight' in which the first man and woman were created: the Eden of Genesis" (1901).
• Thomas Jr. and Madelyn Dixon (unconnected) - a college friend of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and a Southern Baptist minister and playwright who romanticized Southern white supremacy (1905) and inspired The Birth of a Nation, with the help of his mistress.
• William Mack Lee (unconnected) - an “old darky” who wasn't really “Marse” Robert E. Lee’s cook and body servant during the war but did milk “white folks” out of $0.50/each for a photo and lecture on the virtues of Marse Robert (and the story of his pet chicken) during Jim Crow.
• Bruce Craven (unconnected) - “Trinity [NC]’s most revered citizen and community leader” and a "credulous, enthusiastic sort of person, with a lot of prejudices" who got caught.
• William Louis Poteat (unconnected) - a Baptist biologist who "walked out front in all prohibition fights" but parted with William Jennings Bryan on Darwin's theory of evolution and "stood up against the 'monkey bill'" in North Carolina (1922) while supporting eugenics.
• Walter Ney Keener (connected) - a "frank, independent and courageous" Presbyterian, educated by Baptists (Wake Forest), and a politician, and a Dixie Editor "with a deep aversion to shame and pretense wherever it appeared" (Raleigh News & Observer, 1931).
• Gotlip Kuhner (unconnected) - an "industrious, typical American" with a vision of success and the ability to achieve it (Muncie, Indian Board of Education, 1939), as well as five wives!
• Sid Keener (unconnected) - a sportswriter and close friend of Ty Cobb who "could charm friends into telling him what they didn't want to" or "stir the pots with his own rumors of fact and fiction" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1981). Who's On First?

Recommendations

Books

William recommends the following books:

• David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (Simon & Schuster, 2018). See David's interview with Yale for more information.
• Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Harper, 2011). See Eric's Zinn Memorial Lecture (2019) on the "Second Founding" for more information.
• Carl Zimmer, She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity (Dutton, 2018). See Carl's CSPAN interview or op-ed in the Globe & Mail for more information.
• Alex Rosenberg, How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories (MIT Press, 2018). Listen to Alex's discussion with Sean Carroll for more information.
• Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (Metropolitan Books, 2005). See Susan's discussion with Bill Moyers for more information.
• Kim Tallbear, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). See Kim's talk at the Joseph A. Myers Center for Research on Native American Issues for more information.
• Gregory D. Smithers, Native Southerners: Indigenous History from Origins to Removal (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). See Greg's talk hosted by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture for more information.
• Omar Ibn Said (Ala Alryyes, Editor), A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011). See Amna Nawaz's report for PBS NewsHour for more information.
• James Q. Whitman, Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Pres, 2017). See Jim's talk at Revolution Books for more information.

Online

William recommends the following online content:

• Sense About Science on Ancestry DNA Testing.
• Aviva Chomsky, "DNA Tests Make Native Americans Strangers in Their Own Land," The Nation (November 29, 2018).
• American Society of Human Genetics, "ASHG Denounces Attempts to Link Genetics and Racial Supremacy," Elsevier Inc (October 19, 2018).
• Adam Rutherford, "How Accurate Are Online DNA Tests?" Scientific American (October 15, 2018).
• John Edward Terrell, "DNA Tests Quietly Reinforce Terrible and Scientifically Inaccurate Concepts of “Ethnicity," Slate (August 28, 2018).
• Eric Rosenbaum, "5 biggest risks of sharing your DNA with consumer genetic-testing companies," CNBC (June 16, 2018).
• Vivian Chou, "How Science and Genetics are Reshaping the Race Debate of the 21st Century," Harvard's Science in the News blog (August 17, 2017).
• Meagan Day, "No, you are not part Cherokee. And neither is Elizabeth Warren," Timeline (July 5, 2016).
• P. Gabrielle Foreman, et al. “Writing about Slavery/Teaching About Slavery: This Might Help” community-sourced document (March 16, 2019).
• Megan Kate Nelson, "How historians got Nike to pull an ad campaign - in under six hours," Washington Post (April 12, 2019).
• Megan Molteni, "Ancestry.com's racist ad tumbles into a cultural minefield," Wired (April 19, 2019).
• Carl Zimmer, "Seven Big Misconceptions about Heredity," Skeptical Inquirer (Volume 43, No. 3. May/June 2019).