History

The following is an excerpt from a report by Dorothy Apgar, prior Historian, and published in "A History of Apgar Reunions."

Records exist of a first Apgar reunion held on July 28, 1923, in High Bridge, New Jersey, that was attended by nearly 300 people. Other were held almost every year until 1931, the last year records are available, but it is believed that other reunions were held without someone taking notes until 1942, when World War II put an end to the practice. In 1975, Dorothy Apgar and her late husband, Robert, were exploring the Cokesbury cemetery researching data on ancestors when they happened upon Helen Apgar of Califon, NJ, who was doing the same thing. They compared notes on what they were doing and discovered a commonality in the originating ancestor, Johannes Peter Apgard. He had emigrated to America from Germany in 1734 on the ship Hope, landed in Philadelphia, and settled in the Cokesbury section of Hunterdon County, New Jersey. In the course of one of their conversations, Helen brought up the idea of resurrecting the Apgar family reunions. Robert, remembering attending the reunions in High Bridge as a boy, was very receptive to the idea, and a project was begun. The first reunion was held on August 10, 1975, at the home of Mr. & Mrs. Preston Geist on Silverthorne Road in High Bridge and was attended by some 60 people.
Officers were elected, and the first president was Robert O. Apgar. Helen and Dorothy were the first Historians. The Apgar Family Association was begun. Reunions have been held every year since then. The Apgar Family Association was incorporated on September 20, 1986, and will hereafter be referred to as the Apgar Family Association, Inc. The by-laws provide for a board of trustees of between five and eleven members to oversee the running of the association, and the duties and responsibilities of the officers. The officers must themselves be trustees.

Through their research efforts, Dorothy and Helen and other volunteers were able to identify the eleven "first" generation Apgars, at the time identified as the children of Johannes Peter Apgard. This was dropped to ten when it was realized that one of the males, George, was killed by Indians in the West and no records have been found about his life.

They established a system to identify current Apgar descendants through a genealogical numbering system based upon the number of the child born in each succeeding generation, beginning with the original ten. Each person who can trace their genealogical number can instantly see how many generations away from that first generation they are by the number of numbers. If there are seven numbers in your genealogical number, you are the seventh generation descendant.