When German-speaking immigrants arrived in America, they tended to settle in communities of German-speaking people.  Although the residents of a particular community may have come from different areas of German-speaking Europe, they had similar customs and similar ways of life that they retained for many years. At the same time, Pennsylvania Germans were eager to avail themselves of the opportunities of this new land.  Remember that even though our Pennsylvania Germans retained much of their...

In the first post in this series, Heidi Mathis provided a great overview of the push and pull factors that motivated our Pennsylvania German ancestors to come to America.  In this post, I will answer the questions “How did they get here?” and “What happened once they arrived?”  I will also discuss records that might (or might not) have been created along the way.    Preparing to Leave the Homeland In order to leave Germany,...

  Are you one of the millions of Americans who have a German in your family tree? In an earlier series, Tracing Your 19th Century German Ancestors, I distinguished the largest wave of German immigrants to the U.S. who came in the 19th century from the smaller group who came in the colonial period. Colonial Germans, or as they are better known, the Pennsylvania “Dutch” (a misnomer of Deutsch, or German), make up one of...