Where does your family come from?
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I don't see Effort on there? What's up with that?
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Yeah anyway. Holland? I had many from Alsace Lorraine who lit out when the French took over in the early 1700's. It was actually it's own German speaking country before that. Some were religious refugees from Switzerland. Most PA Dutch, were actually refugees who fled either Holland or Switzerland and spent a generation in Bavaria before heading to PA. In the early 1700's there was no Germany. it was a odd patchwork of about 30 small kingdoms. One of my ancestors came here from the small Dutchy of Zweibrucken (Zweibrucken means two bridges, the main town had two bridges hence the name) which might have been about the size of some larger Pa townships.
The thirty years war decimated central europe and most of southern Bavaria lost nearly 90 percent of its populace. Fields returned to briars and scrub and entire villages went to ruin for lack of farmers and people to maintain them. When religious refugees from Holland or Switzerland needed a place to go, The Elector of the Palatinate, Prince Carl Ludwig, permitted them to settle in his kingdom in the mid 1600's. However the official Churches were Lutheran and Catholic and since they were Mennonite, or other anabaptists, they were required to pay an additional tax for the priviledge of being part of unofficial religious sects. They jumped at the chance to go to PA when the opportunity arose after 1681. For the next 70 years there was a huge exodus to PA from that area. So many who say they are Pa Dutch, are really "Holland" Dutch or Swiss. And when their ancestors came here there was no unified Germany. Perhaps they came from Saxony, Bavaria, Alzey or Schleswig, but not Germany. It wasn't Germany until about 100 years later. Many of the early immigrants to Philadelphia were from Alzy in eastern Bavaria. In the 1730's most were from the area along the Rhine either from the western Bavaria side of the Rhine or Alsace Lorraine on the French side of the Rhine. Such as Zeibrucken on the Bavarian side. The famous Angstadt family of Berks County Gunsmiths were from Alsace Lorraine and a little village of Gumbrechtshoffen. Although, Hans Angstadt served his apprenticeship in Saxony on the other side of the Rhine.
The thirty years war decimated central europe and most of southern Bavaria lost nearly 90 percent of its populace. Fields returned to briars and scrub and entire villages went to ruin for lack of farmers and people to maintain them. When religious refugees from Holland or Switzerland needed a place to go, The Elector of the Palatinate, Prince Carl Ludwig, permitted them to settle in his kingdom in the mid 1600's. However the official Churches were Lutheran and Catholic and since they were Mennonite, or other anabaptists, they were required to pay an additional tax for the priviledge of being part of unofficial religious sects. They jumped at the chance to go to PA when the opportunity arose after 1681. For the next 70 years there was a huge exodus to PA from that area. So many who say they are Pa Dutch, are really "Holland" Dutch or Swiss. And when their ancestors came here there was no unified Germany. Perhaps they came from Saxony, Bavaria, Alzey or Schleswig, but not Germany. It wasn't Germany until about 100 years later. Many of the early immigrants to Philadelphia were from Alzy in eastern Bavaria. In the 1730's most were from the area along the Rhine either from the western Bavaria side of the Rhine or Alsace Lorraine on the French side of the Rhine. Such as Zeibrucken on the Bavarian side. The famous Angstadt family of Berks County Gunsmiths were from Alsace Lorraine and a little village of Gumbrechtshoffen. Although, Hans Angstadt served his apprenticeship in Saxony on the other side of the Rhine.
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The Palatinate region of Germany. My forefathers came over courtesy of Queen Annes England for the Palatine Pine pitch experiment in 1709 along the Hudson river south of Albany. Conrad Weisers dad was the leader of the Palatines. when the pine pitch thing didn't work out they went to the Schoharie valley NY for a few years before settling in Tulpehocken PA in 1723.
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moosehunter and zimmerstutzen.... I think you guys may be Amish. Are you aware of that? Isn't that where our Amish friends hale from before they settled over here?
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Steely Ran said:
The Amish came out of the Mennonites (Anabaptists) who left the general area of Germany during the Palatine migrations. Johann Biessel formed an ultra strict sect called the Ephrata Cloister who were into self denial and torment of the flesh and spirit among other weird things such as soul alchemy. They split up after a number of years but a lot of the Amish beliefs sprang from that. The Amish are something that came out of the PA mennonite culture.
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Ireland, Scottland and Wales.
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Zütphen, Netherlands ~1624
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x2!!Stogey said:
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Renovo,PA and Katrineholm, Sweden
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