This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Researcher, Randall Ladnier of Sarasota, FL, has studied this family all of his life. He has corresponded with numerous people in Switzerland and has made several trips there to research this family. He concentrated his search in the Canton of Grisons for a Christian Ladner born in the late 1600's. During one of his trips to Grisons (Graubuenden), he found a small village called "Seewis im Prattigau." In Seewis, Randall met a man in the village that showed him an old book that had the name Christian Ladner written in it. Because of the language difference, Randall was not exactly sure what he was looking at, and the man would not let him photo copy it. Once back in the U. S., Randall ordered the microfilm copy for the early church records for Seewis from the LDS library in Salt Lake City, UT (film #1192862). He found the baptism record for Christian Ladner, made copies, and made it available to the public. It is written in an early German / Swiss script that is difficult to read. He has translated it and learned that Christian Ladner, and his twin sister, Anna, were baptized on May 5,1690. On September 30, 2016, via email, I contacted the church in Seewis. The church is now called the Evangelisch-Reformierte (Protestant), Kirche (Church) of Seewis im Prattingau, Switzerland. A kind employee, Gredig Franziska, emailed me an original copy of Christian Ladner's baptism record, with a typed version, and a typed translation. This old church record shows "Chresten and Anna" (twins), children of "Lutzi Ladner," with no mother named, both baptized on May 5,1690, and no date of birth listed. For Christian Ladner's date of birth, I will simply use the year "1690," because in the early Church, children were usually baptized within days or weeks of the birth. Randall also shared additional information on Christian's ancestors, siblings, etc. that I scanned into the FamilySearch.org page for Christian Ladner (L5PY-GZ3) under the "Memories Section." It was in this additional research, we learned that Christian's mother was "Elizabeth Reutner." Seewis is a small village with the majority of its citizens of German descent and they still speak a dialect of the old German / Swiss language. Thus, our Christian Ladner was probably of German ancestry.
Keep in mind that many of the early church and civil records in colonial Gulf Coast America were poorly hand-written in French or Spanish and faded, making their translation very difficult. This is why we see different people today presenting different interpretations and name spelling variations of the same documents. I will use the translations I feel are the most likely to be correct and, if the ancestor was of French ancestry, the French spelling of the names will be used for identification and uniformity. One must remember that the French names recorded were sometimes written by Spanish priests (or vice versa), leading to various spellings of the same name. Also, many of these early settlers did not know how to spell their own names, creating more confusion. On top of that, the priests sent from Europe to the colonies were often not the sharpest priests. The best, and most educated priest, were kept home to serve their congregations in Europe.
Now the question - was our Christian Ladner born in 1690 or 1699? Do we accept the 1699 date as found on the early ship register or the 1690 date found by Randall Ladnier? As to the 1699 date, when Christian's age was listed as "20" on the ship register in 1719, he would have been born in 1699. Let's assume, because of language differences, the ship captain should have listed Christian's age at "30." Subtracting age 30 from the year 1719 would make Christian born in 1689 - plenty close enough to be the Christian Ladner born in 1690 as discovered by Randall Ladnier. While Randall's source is not as conclusive as I wished it would be, it is the best we have at this time. Because I have known Randall for many years and know the quality of his research, I will use his information until something better can be found. I will let others decide for themselves which record is correct.