German migration to Pennsylvania - eighteenth century

Here are 4 good sites: hope they help!

18th Century German Immigrants

Guide to Genealogical & Historical Research in Pennsylvania

U.S.-Emigration and Immigration in the 18th Century

German Emigration

In addition to the above great links, I might add this one from German (in Englisch, but mostly linking to German sites ):

genealogy.net



According to a PDF-publication by the Rhineland Regional Museum Kommern (in German: http://www.migration.lvr.de/Aktion&Angebote/Schulaktionen/Museum-Kommern%2072%20DPI.pdf)) until ~1840 most German immigrants came from the alemanic-palentine-bavarian region.
From mid-1840's onwards, West Germany became an immigrant region as well: until the turn of the century, 15% of German immigrants came from the Rhineland and Westphalia.
Zunkel* calculates that about 290,000 persons from the Rhine Province immigrated to the USA, mostly from the districts of Coblenz and Trier. (*Zunkel, Friedrich in: Auswanderung als notwendiges Ventil: Gesellschaft-wirtschaftliche Verhältnisse in den rheinischen Territorien und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Auswanderung im Zeitalter des Absolutismus und der Frühindustrialisierung, n.d.; [obviously unpublished] lecture, made on May 15, 2000, at Brauweiler Abbey, Puhlheim, at the scientific symposium "Nice new world - immigration from the Rhineland to America from the 17th until the 19th century" ['Schoene neue Welt - Auswanderung aus dem Rheinland in die USA vom 17. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert '])

More links

The Ancestral Home of The Pennsylvania Germans

The German and Swiss Emigration of the 18th Century

The poor Palentines

The Palatine Germans to New York in 1710

The German Palentine

The Irish Palatine Association

Palatines from Germany to England in 1709

A Contemporary Description of the Palatines. What follows is a contemporary description of the Palatines and of their difficult situation in England in 1709 and 1710, while they were awaiting transport to the New World

Irish Palatine Internet Resources

The Palatines of Olde Ulster

"Dear cousin!" - a very interesting letter.

Amish Mennonites

Germanna History Notes Nr. 826-850: Thirty-fourth page of John Blankenbaker's series of Short Notes on Germanna History

Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia

I found this one of some historical/actual interest :

German immigration in Virginia

the scholarly works by Donald Kraybill and john Hostettter are in their 4th and fifth editionstthrough Johns Hopkins Press. These works spend mot of their time on the sepaaraatists who were the opressed in the Thhirtty Years War, te Palatine War of succession, and tthe border skirmishes between Holland , Fraance, aand the German staates aalong those borders. Frances attacks on the Palatinate in 1688 led to wholesale redistribution of lands and displacement of large populations of the Anabaptists sects (the principal emigrees in the first waves of Pa "Dutch")also, many non Germans (ie French Huguenots left France and migrated to Germany , to be swept into the migration to PA in the late 1600s).
There were 2 main waves of severe anabaptist miigration , and interspersed with migrations of other , more traditionaal non-anabaptists migration

The largest amounts of German migration was actually in the 1800s , by lutheran sects who left because, as descendants of the Palatine redistribution tthey were left out of the earlier land grab.

There were thousands of germans who migrated , but the AMish and mennonites (who make up the largest recognizable "Pa dutch' sects) only represent a few hundred families and the Amish had a stock of only 35 founding families.

id look into the center for Anabaptists studies at Elizabethtown College pA. thats where the biggest repository of scholarship in the US lies.

thank you all for your help....you have been quite helpful...now i have another dilemna.....please see my thread....pennsylvania-eighteenth century-philadelphia to lancaster....any help there would be appreciated....thanks

Link: http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=42935

Christine, are you researching this for a paper or a book? If so, I'd be really interested to hear more about your research and what it will result in.

actually i'm researching this for a book....you said you are interested....please excuse my curiousity.....but why is that? what exactly are you interested in knowing.....i would be glad to talk futher with you about it.

i appreciate the interest. thanks.

If youre writing aa book the Kraaybill and Hosteter books are classics , they include maps of the migration from "Germantown" (Phila) via the Swatara aand into Laancaster . There is an Anabaptist and Pa German Heritage museum , the Anabaptists research cnter, and other sstaate run museums that cover this subject in a scholarly manner. There is even a congenital disease information center. Th subjct of folk history and arts are a very big tourist draw. Are you doing a scholarly or popularly written book/ The Pa German society in Collegeville Pa is a wonderful source of just about everything Pa German. Theyve got the ooriginal maanuscript of Pastorius'
"Reise nacht Pennsylfawniisch im Yahr 1693" Pastoriuus was like a German tour-guide

farmerman.....thank you very much for pointing me to kraybil and hostetter.....i am very familiar with both of them....and have one of their books...can't recall which one it is at the moment....however....the person i am researching does not have any amish or anabaptist heritage....

i want to let you know though.....that i agree with you about kraybil being a good source of information....he is a scholar in the amish culture.

thanks again.

Christine, I'd love to know what you come up with too. One branch of my family arrived here in 1731 from Merztweiler, Alsace abroad the Brittania. They were Palatines.

When they came from Mertzweiler/Alsace, they were Alsaciennes/Elsässer, and no Palantines.

Merztweiler(Mertzwiller)/Alsace/France



However, if they came from Merzweiler, they truely where Palantines, because Merzweiler is situated in Palantine :wink:


Merzweiler/Palantine/Germany

TY, they were listed as Palatines from Merzweiler/Alsace...or thats how it was listed.


http://progenealogists.com/palproject/pa/1731brit.htm

http://members.aol.com/niteowl226/Page7.html

Hans Georg Friedli, 25
Solomia (Blattner or Plattner), 23
Lorenz, 2
Hans Georg, 15 days

Merztweiler, Alsace




Hans Michael Blattner, 23
Maria Catherina (Rennert/Reinhard) , 30
Georg Michel, 2
Anna Maria, 1
Anna Maria, 20
Katherina Bladner, 36

Waldangelloch, Baden



*Anyway...I'm still learning........but curious.

Well, the first is - see you own post - not from Merzweiler but from MerTzweiler and from Alsace.
The second from Baden.

Both are not that far away from to Palantine, but not Palantine. (Neither geographically nor historically, even if those sites say it otherwise!) :wink:

(Waldangelloch is today part of the town of Sinsheim, situated east of Heidelberg.)

walter-thanks for the earlier links, Ive downloaded and put them in my files.

walter,

i appreciate your knowledge so much on the topic of german migration to the united states. it has been quite helpful...and i really appreciate the consideration to translate your information in english.....again i find it so helpful and can't say enough how much i arrpeciate it.

Nothing to thank for - I live in Germany, can understand German, know a bit, where and how to research ... and wrote the one and other term paper about that time/subject (years ago) :wink:

well, walter, your living in germany and writing that term paper has helped me a lot.....and i live in the german state of pennsylvania.....and take a lot of pride in my german roots.

hopefully after i'm done with this paper i'm trying to get done....i will have the time to do more indepth research into the german migration to pennsylvania....it's just that my time is very limited right now.

i'm looking forward to getting to philadelphia where i will hopefully find the answers to my greater questions.

and although you say thanks isn't necessary.....i find that it is.....you have given me a pretty good idea about what took place during the migration.