Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about the emigration of Pennsylvania Germans from their homeland. We talk with Alice Childs, Accredited Genealogist Professional, about the steps required for a German emigrant to leave Germany. We also talk about the voyage and ship records. This episode also includes a discussion of the guiding principles to follow when researching Pennsylvania Germans, like employing FAN methodology and identifying the proper jurisdiction.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 208 Pennsylvania Germans part two immigration and guiding principles. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.
Nicole (42s):
Let’s go. Hi everybody. Welcome to Research Like a Pro
Diana (47s):
Hi, Nicole, how are you today?
Nicole (50s):
Great. We had our NGSQ study group today. That was fun.
Diana (54s):
Yes. I always enjoy getting together and talking about these great articles.
Nicole (59s):
Yes. Great article. It’s called A Father for William E Enfinger of Alachua county, Florida, by Nancy A. Peters and it’s in the December, 2021 issue. So it was very interesting to see how she was able to use clues from land records and mortgage records and tracked books. And she just pulled together all these clues to figure out marriages and children and putting together a fan club. So it was a good example of that methodology for using bank love research. So today we’re happy to have Alice Childs here to talk more about our series that we started last time in the first part of the series, Heidi Mathis gave us a great overview of the push and pull factors of our Pennsylvania German ancestors coming to America.
Nicole (1m 50s):
So today we’re going to talk about how did they get here and what happened once they arrived? So we’re excited to talk about all of this with Alice and Alice is one of our wonderful researchers at family locket genealogists, and she’s a really good writer and a great friend of ours. So hi, Alice.
Alice Childs (2m 8s):
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Nicole (2m 11s):
Thanks for being here.
Diana (2m 12s):
Yes. And I would just mentioned the Alice is the newly accredited genealogist and she’s accredited in the Mid-Atlantic states and Pennsylvania is one of those states, right?
Alice Childs (2m 22s):
It is. It’s one of the five states in the mid Atlantic region. So I love researching in Pennsylvania that’s I did my fourth generation project on a Pennsylvania family, Pennsylvania Germans, in fact, so this is a fun topic.
Diana (2m 35s):
We are excited to have Alice telling us all about Pennsylvania Germans. So can you tell us what was involved when an immigrant was preparing to leave the Homeland?
Alice Childs (2m 44s):
Yes, I think in the last episode, Heidi talked a little bit about the circumstances in Germany and the difficulties that the people there had, the, it was hard to leave Germany to the immigrants were required to get permission and pay manumission and immigration to the territorial rulers. That was difficult because a lot of people were poor and didn’t have money. And so it just became difficult, but really desirable for them to leave, to find a better life. Some of the menu mission records were kept in Germany and they’ve been compiled by a man named Verner Hawker into a book called or a series of books called 18th century register of immigrants from Southwest Germany to America and other countries.
Alice Childs (3m 26s):
And you can go look that up on WorldCat to find a copy. It’s a relatively recent books. So you’ll probably want to find that in a library or find copies if you want to purchase them. But the fees for immigrating were really prohibitive. So a lot of times Germans would immigrate illegally. So whether they came by paying the correct fees or came illegally, the process of leaving the Homeland was difficult.
Diana (3m 51s):
So when you talk about manumission records, are we talking, not slavery, indentured servitude, and what exactly does that mean?
Alice Childs (3m 60s):
I believe it was more like a indentured servitude. They would have been working for these Lords and would have had to get permission and pay fees to be able to leave.
Diana (4m 9s):
Well, that makes sense.
Nicole (4m 11s):
Well, that seems impressive, but you know, our culture today is much different than the 1700s. And is that the time period we’re talking about like the colonial America migration immigration,
Alice Childs (4m 21s):
The time period that we think of for the Germans is around the 1730s through the late 1700s for this wave of German immigrants.
Nicole (4m 32s):
Yeah. That’s really helpful to know. Let’s talk now about the voyage and are there records from that far back the 1730s and forward, you know, in that century about the voyage?
Alice Childs (4m 44s):
Yes. So once they decided to leave, it was really long and difficult process. They didn’t necessarily have to travel on foot much because the Rhine river went right through where these immigrants are from. And so they would just need to get to the Rhine river and then they would go up the Rhine river to Rotterdam. And then from there, they would go through the Strait of Dover, into the isle of Wight, into cows, and then go through the English channel and then across the Atlantic. So it was quite, you know, several steps in the process. And the first step of getting to Rotterdam could take weeks and they would have tolls and fees. And by the time they got to Rotterdam, they might be out of resources.
Alice Childs (5m 24s):
And so they would then have to try to think of what they could do next, but they often had to wait a month or more before they could get passage from Rotterdam. Once they got on a ship, the voyage across the Atlantic was difficult. The reason they had to stop in the isle of Wight is because America was an English colony. And so they had to stop there, you know, for legal purposes. And so once they left England, then the D the journey was really difficult. They would have death and exploitation, hunger storms sickness. And of course it was really boring to be on a ship for months and months. So it was a difficult journey, but once they arrived in Philadelphia, the first thing they did is all men who are over the age of 16, who are well enough to walk, got escorted to the courthouse.
Alice Childs (6m 11s):
And they were asked to sign oaths. They’re an oath of allegiance to the king of England. And then they also had to denounce their loyalty to the Pope or any other foreign power. And so passenger lists for this period are kind of rare, but a record was kept of the people who signed at the courthouse, and those can act as a substitute for ships lists, but you need to remember that it was only men over 16, and those who are well, sometimes people were so sick that they were just on their ship and couldn’t go anywhere. So they’re not super complete, but they are good records. And do, give us an idea of some of the men who came the surviving lists. There’s only about half of all arrivals who they estimate are recorded on these records, but Strassburger and Hinky are authors that have compiled these lists and put them in a series called Pennsylvania German pioneers, a publication of the original list of arrivals in the port of Philadelphia from 1727 to 1808.
Alice Childs (7m 9s):
And that’s in three volumes and you can access those digitally at FamilySearch. So that’s a really great resource to see if you can find your ancestor. So in volume one, there are ship and courthouse lists, and there was no standard format when they were making these lists. So some captains put the names of all the passengers and including the women and children. Some only had the men, some are organized by family. Others are separated with the men and one column and women and another column and boys and girls, and another column. So you just kind of just look at it and see what you get. Then volume two has the facsimiles of the signatures of the men who signed the oath at the courthouse. So that’s pretty cool to see your ancestor signatures, and then volume three includes the later lists from 1785 to 1808 and also an index for the entire set.
Alice Childs (8m 1s):
So that’s a great, great resource.
Diana (8m 3s):
Well, that’s so interesting to learn about the different kinds of records and the indexing. And so my question is, did these Germans migrate separately or in groups,
Alice Childs (8m 13s):
They did often migrate in groups with either other family members or at least with members of their villages. So there was a study that was done and they did took a sample of six parishes, and it was found that 85% of immigrants traveled with family members and 96% traveled with people from the same parish on the same ship. So cluster research is going to be really important for researching your Pennsylvania, German ancestors, especially when trying to find out where in Germany they came from. If you can’t find where your ancestor came from, you can study the people they traveled with and the people that they settled with. And hopefully you will find something that tells where those people came from, and that will help you.
Alice Childs (8m 53s):
Also, once they got off the ship, you know, they were on the ship with their friends and family. And so when they got off the ship and went to the courthouse, they, who would they be with? They were with their friends and family in line. And so the people who signed the oath, you know, you can look at those signatures and see who was listed next to your ancestor. And those are probably friends and family members. So yeah, the FAN club is really important when we’re studying Pennsylvania Germans.
Diana (9m 17s):
That’s really good to know because that can often help you figure out if this is your German or not based on who they’re traveling together and can really help to differentiate people of the same name. So always good to understand these migration patterns.
Alice Childs (9m 35s):
So if you’re starting to research your Pennsylvania Germans, the passenger arrival list that we just talked about will be the first one of the first sources that were created for them. So even though they only include about half of all people who came, you shouldn’t overlook that. So make sure and look for that. Find your ancestor first in the index in volume three, then find them on the passenger and arrival list in volume one or three, depending on the time period. And just note that the lists are organized by ship. So you have to look in the index first. You’re not going to be able to just go to the, go to the list and find them. You need to go to the index, find the ship and the date, and then go back and then you can find their signature and volume two.
Alice Childs (10m 16s):
So for example, I’ve been researching Adam Fisher. He was living in north Hampton county by at least 1761. His son, Philip Jacob was born there in 1761. And I have wondered if Adam might have been born in Germany and been the ancestor that came from Germany. So I wanted to look and see if I could find him on the passenger arrival list. So I looked in the index and found him there, and it said he came on the ship, Isaac in 18 or 1749. And so I, it said page 415 of volume one, and then I went to volume one and found him there. Well, I don’t know if it’s him, it’s a man named Georg, George or ‘gay org’ Adam Fisher.
Alice Childs (10m 56s):
So I’m exploring the possibility that this might be my ancestor, but it states that he followed the pattern. The ship came from Rotterdam, but last from cows in England. So I’ve made a note of all the people who are listed on the same page as him. And then I navigated to volume two and found the ship list for the Isaac and was able to see his signature, which was really cool. So I’m excited to do more research to find out if this is the same man who was the father of my ancestor that I’m researching. So I hope that kind of provides an overview of what you might do to find your ancestor on these lists.
Diana (11m 31s):
All right. Well, let’s talk a little bit about this idea of indentured servitude.
Alice Childs (11m 36s):
Okay. So once the people arrived and the men signed the oath at the courthouse, the immigrants lived on the ship until they could figure out a way to pay their passage. So a lot of times they came and said that they, you know, with the agreement that their passage would be paid once they got here, but they had to figure out how to pay for that. So a lot of times a family member had gone ahead and then the family member might take out a loan or, you know, something to get the money and come and pay the fees so that the people could get off the ship and go and live near the rest of the family. Sometimes their passage was paid by other people who were an agent who had arranged the terms with the people prior to their leaving from Rotterdam.
Alice Childs (12m 16s):
And if they could not find anyone or didn’t have anyone to pay their passage, then they were sold as indentured servants. So about half of all German immigrants were consigned to indentured servitude and the period they served would be four to 10 years. Probably there aren’t a lot of records for in dentures. One way to really be able to tell or guests as they’re hypothesized that they were indentured servants, is that if you find your ancestor in Pennsylvania, German pioneers the book with the passenger lists and, and oaths, and then you don’t find a record of him and other documents for several years, then you can assume that he was probably an indentured servant. And that might be the only way that you would know.
Diana (12m 58s):
Wow. That is really interesting because you would expect to find them maybe getting land immediately or paying taxes or, you know, some kind of a record.
Alice Childs (13m 10s):
Yeah.
Diana (13m 10s):
So that’s really a good hint.
Alice Childs (13m 13s):
Yeah. Yeah. As Heidi mentioned, she talked about how land was at the forefront of their minds. There were, you know, there were situations in Germany, the way that inheritance laws were their land was getting divided and smaller and smaller. And so they didn’t have enough land to subsist. They couldn’t feed their families. And so land is what they were really hoping for. And there were a lot of tracks and letters from people who had gone ahead talking about the availability of land and people were excited. So as soon as they were able to, once they got here, they tried to find a piece of land to purchase for themselves and for their posterity. There’s an interesting series of fictional dialogues that was run in a yearly Almanac in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Alice Childs (14m 0s):
And it was between a well-settled Pennsylvania German and a newly arrived immigrant. And it kind of, you know, just talks about what the settler had learned and what they were hoping for. And kind of just trying to illustrate to people who are going to be coming, what life might be like. But I just think this passage is interesting. It says I made a difficult move across the sea so that I could improve my situation and establish for myself a peaceful life. As I once had had to this end, I have searched this land for the best place I can find and yet afford while I can still work. I hope to set myself up in order that I shall have saved enough so that by the time I am old and can no longer work, I shall not need to. Therefore I want to serve God so that I might be blessed in death.
Alice Childs (14m 41s):
So I think that really illustrates that they want to get ahold of some land that they can have for themselves and their family and get some stability and comfort to pass on. And it also illustrates that they were religious and wanted to serve God and gain blessings.
Diana (14m 56s):
I love that. Well, let’s talk about some guiding principles because I’m guessing there’s some specific things we should keep in mind when researching our Pennsylvania German ancestors.
Alice Childs (15m 8s):
I think one of the first things to remember is that when German speaking immigrants arrived in America, they settled in communities of German speaking people. You know, that was easier because they could all communicate with one another. And so they tended to gravitate toward other people who spoke the same language. So as we mentioned before, community members often traveled from Germany together and settled together. But even if they didn’t, they might’ve come from different German speaking areas, but they still had similar customs and similar ways of life. And they retained those for many years. So that’s something to keep in mind, fan club methodology, and sometimes some cultural records or cultural practices might come into play when you are researching these people.
Alice Childs (15m 53s):
Another key thing to remember is once they arrived in America, they became Americans. So it’s not like you’re going to have a bunch of unique German records for these people. They’re going to be having records created for them that are similar to everyone who lived in Pennsylvania during that time period. But they did retain that German identity. So there are specific insights that are helpful when you’re researching Pennsylvania Germans. And we need to keep those in mind as we go along.
Diana (16m 22s):
I think it’s always interesting to see how long they stay with those German communities. I know in my Eisenhower research, I found that they kind of hung out with the Germans and tell my ancestor, moved to Missouri. And then the name changed to an English sized spelling. And after that, there was really no good German culture kept in the family. So it’s so interesting.
Alice Childs (16m 46s):
And as migration became more and more common and people started spreading out across the country instead of staying in one place. Yeah. Well,
Nicole (16m 55s):
When we’re talking to him about Germans, what, what do we need to think about as far as name variations? Because even with Eisenhower and Schultz, there’s so many different ways. We’ve seen those two names spelled in our family history.
Alice Childs (17m 7s):
One thing that we have to remember when we’re researching Pennsylvania, Germans or Germans in America in general. So names are really important. There were common ways that names got varied or spelled differently. So the two major ways, the first one is the translation of a German name to its English equivalent. So Zimmerman became carpenter and William Penn, when he lists issued land patents to Pennsylvania, German settlers, he would often translate their German name into the corresponding English name. So that’s something to remember the second and probably the most common way that name variations came about was just through the English spelling of German sounds.
Alice Childs (17m 48s):
So it was a phonetic change. So if you have Staley, S T E C H L I, that would become Staley S T A L E Y. So German spellings would get changed to English, you know, English spellings just by the way they sounded. And given names were often English size too. So Heinrich would become Henry or Maria would become Mary.
Nicole (18m 12s):
Oh, absolutely. I feel like I’ve seen all of these. We have a Heinrich, we have Johan and we have Felton and Valentine. It’s interesting to see these names becoming Anglicised over time.
Diana (18m 28s):
I know with our Schultz surname, it started out as S C H U L T Z, that then about 1800s, Tennessee, they changed it to S H U L T S really anglicizing it, but there was a branch of the family that kept the Z. And it’s funny because they just insist that that is how it’s supposed to be spelled. And yeah, their ancestor did spell it that way. But before him, it was spelled S H U L T S. So these name variations can be a challenge, and sometimes it can differentiate from a different branch of the family and sometimes not
Alice Childs (19m 8s):
Well, and it’s important to remember, you know, when you’ve worked with these records a lot, and you’re more experienced as a genealogist, you kind of think, okay, name variations can happen. But if you’re just beginning your research, sometimes that can hang you up, right. It can say, well, this can’t be the same person, cause the spelling’s different or the, you know, it’s a lot different name. So I think it’s really important to learn that that is common and learn how to account for that when you’re researching.
Diana (19m 38s):
Well, let’s talk about naming customs. The Germans have unique naming customs that could help as we are researching our Pennsylvania German ancestors.
Alice Childs (19m 48s):
Yes. And they’re so fascinating. The first custom is that two given names were given to the children most times. So the first name was the name of a favorite Saint, and it was considered more of a spiritual name. And the second given name was known as the roof Name or their call name. And that’s the name that they would be known by not only by the family, but also in legal records. So the spiritual name also was often the same spiritual name was often given to every child in the family. So like for boys, they might name all of their children with the first name, Johann or Philip. And favorite, first names are saints names for females were Anna or Maria.
Alice Childs (20m 29s):
So one family might have their children Johan George and Johann Jacob and Johann Adam, and then Anna Barbara and Anna Catherine. And, but their kids would just be known as George, Jacob, Adam, Barbara, and Catherine. So it’s really important to realize that when you’re trying to identify your ancestors, because on their baptism record, it might have both names, but you might never find that child with that same first name that’s on their baptism record. Again, there’s also naming patterns, which I know we see in other cultures as well, but they can provide clues about the extended family. So it was really common to name the first born son after the child’s paternal grandfather and second born son after the maternal grandfather and then for girls, the first born daughter was traditionally named after the mother’s mother and the second daughter after the father’s mother.
Alice Childs (21m 19s):
And this is just one and probably the most common naming patterns, but there are a lot of different ones. And there’s a really great article by a man named Charles F Kirchner in my blog post. I have a link to that, but he goes over all these customs in detail. So if you don’t see that naming pattern happening in your family, you can look at the other options and see if they followed one of those naming patterns, because that can give you a really good clues about extending the line and who the parents, what the parents’ names might’ve been.
Diana (21m 47s):
Yes, it’s always so good to understand the traditional naming pattern formula and whether it actually works out, then it doesn’t matter, but we have to have some understanding of that as genealogists.
Nicole (22m 2s):
Yeah. And I’d always wondered why are they all named Johann? So it’s helpful to know that their first name was that favorite Saint name considered a spiritual name and that the second name was the one they went by.
Alice Childs (22m 12s):
So that’s really cool. When you find out that the records do go along with what you learned. Right.
Nicole (22m 18s):
All right. So tell us how we can access any helps for German language and handwriting things. Because when I look at German handwriting, it just looks kind of hard to read, and it just looks kind of hard to read.
Alice Childs (22m 29s):
We do run into German records in Pennsylvania sometimes because German speaking immigrants can retain that language a lot of the time. And so they would often keep records in German. So the first thing that you really want to have is a basic knowledge of key words in German, and you’ll need some practice in reading German handwriting. So I’ll tell you a few resources that have been really helpful for me. For key words, I always use the German genealogical word list at family search, and I’m sure you’re familiar with the word lists for different languages, but it’s a great glossary of words that you might encounter in German records. So I just have a bookmark to that page so that when I’m looking at German records, I can go and make sure that I’m remembering what those keywords are.
Alice Childs (23m 16s):
Especially when you look at certain records, you know, a baptism record will have certain key words all the time and a death record will have certain keywords. So if you know those keywords, you can identify, okay, this is a death record, or this is a baptism record. And then you can pick out the names. So that’s really helpful. Another helpful resource is at family search also in it’s the Germany handwriting page. And it has several examples and handouts that you can use. It shows numbers and days and, and all kinds of different information. And they also have handouts about birth marriage and death records. Family search also has a list of German given names, which I’ve used a lot.
Alice Childs (23m 57s):
It’s really interesting because it’ll have, you know, it has the names typed out, but then it has little excerpts from the records that they’ve kind of cut out and put onto this document. So you can see how the name, a given name might be written in a record, which is really helpful. And if you really want to start learning how to read and decipher the handwriting, there’s a really fantastic paleography seminar at FamilySearch by Charlotte Noel Champonois and it is really good. I did that when I was preparing for accreditation because I needed to be able to read German records for my document interpretation test. And it’s a really fantastic seminar. So I would highly recommend that there’s also a really handy tool.
Alice Childs (24m 39s):
It’s a script generator and you can type in a phrase or a name or something into the font generator. And then there are several different fonts that are common in German records. And you can click on each one and see what that word or name would look like when you are looking at it in a record. And then as you’re looking at your record, you can kind of compare and see what you think it might be. Or if you know that person’s name and you’re looking through records, you can type that name in and see what it might look like so that you can recognize it easier. And the records, because, you know, the letter formations in different things are very different in German handwriting than they are in our handwriting. So along with that, another tool that I used when I was prepping for my accreditation testing was the BYU script tutorial.
Alice Childs (25m 22s):
It’s a fantastic tool and they have a little test section there where you can say, okay, I want to do the word test and it’ll give you words and you have to type in what you think the word is. So it’s words that are spelled in German script and, and you can type in what you think they are. And it grades you and tells you if you got it right or wrong. So those are really great tools. And if you’re wanting help translating a document, there’s a German genealogy translations group on Facebook. And that’s a great resource to get people to help you. If you’re trying to translate a document,
Nicole (25m 53s):
How nice that people will volunteer to do that. And the script generator tool sounds really valuable to kind of visualize, but things might look like. So that’s really, I mean, those are all wonderful records. And I remember when we talked with Heidi about her Missouri research with Germans, she had mentioned some of these same things too. There’s just so many great resources and it’s cool that family search has those free videos and seminars that you can watch that have experts really teaching a lot of helpful things.
Diana (26m 25s):
And I think that we can’t be afraid of digging in and trying something new. And maybe the language has really been hard for us in the past, but now we have some tools and it just takes some learning and getting used to it. And we can really do this harder research with different languages. So thanks for giving us so many great resources. Well, let’s go ahead and talk about the FAN club. We’ve already mentioned this just a little bit with the idea of cluster migration, but it is an essential research methodology. So how do we use the friends, associates and neighbors in researching our Pennsylvania Germans?
Alice Childs (27m 3s):
Yeah, I think if you’re wanting to use the FAN club for your research, which you need to, I think the first thing to remember is that idea that land was really important to the Pennsylvania Germans. So any record that’s created surrounding the acquisition of land or a taxation of land or the inheritance of land, those are going to be really essential resources to use. So think land tax and probate records, right? And then to employ the FAN club methodology, you want to write down anyone that appears in those records, you know, if there appear to be neighbors or if they’re witnesses to a deed or a will or anything like that. And then you want to do some basic research on each of those people.
Alice Childs (27m 44s):
You know, you can’t just write down their names and hope to have a grand discovery. You can start doing some research on each one of those people. And then as you expand into more record types, you can start looking at fellow church members and, you know, newspapers or something might give you clues about who is involved in day to day activities. So the more you can learn about the people in your ancestor’s life, the more likely you are to be able to extend their ancestry into Germany.
Diana (28m 12s):
Those are just fabulous tips. Let’s talk a little bit now about jurisdictions. So how important is it to identify the proper jurisdiction for your research?
Alice Childs (28m 23s):
Yes. There was a lot of growth going on in Pennsylvania during this time period. So we need to keep in mind that there were a lot of boundary changes and expansion from east to west in Pennsylvania also. So the Penn family kept purchasing land from the Indians over the span of a century, which is right during the time our Pennsylvania, German ancestors were arriving in the country. So new areas started becoming available for settlement as time went on. So people would start migrating from the original counties of Pennsylvania into new regions. So in my blog post, I have a map that shows the various purchases from 1683 to 1792.
Alice Childs (29m 3s):
And that can help, you know, when different regions were available for settlement. So if you have someone who’s settled in one of those more Western regions and the early 1800s or something, you might want to look to the east for earlier records for them, because they wouldn’t have been there for that long because it wasn’t available to be settled for that long. So in 1729, there were only four counties. There were Bucks, Philadelphia, Chester, and Lancaster. And then by the time of the revolutionary war, there are 11 counties. And by 1800, there were 23 counties. So you can see that they were expanding and changing boundaries pretty rapidly. So you just need to make sure you’re looking for records in the correct county. I have an ancestor, Jacob Fisher, my fourth generation project ancestor.
Alice Childs (29m 46s):
And he lived in white hall township in the 1780s that was in Lehigh county. Now it’s in Lehigh county, but back then it was in north Hampton county because Lehigh was not formed until 1812. So I have found a lot of records for Jacob in north Hampton county rather than Lehigh county. So this principle holds true most of the time, but you do have to remember that sometimes records would go to the new county. You just need to check both counties if you’re not finding them in the records of the county, that was the county at that time, go ahead and check the new county because sometimes records end up in both counties, but just keep that in mind. Yeah.
Diana (30m 24s):
Jurisdiction is so important. And that’s a great thing to put in your research locality guide.
Nicole (30m 30s):
What is a good source to begin with as you do this,
Alice Childs (30m 33s):
If you’re wanting to access records for this time period, one, one really great resource that’s unique to Pennsylvania is the published Pennsylvania archives. So don’t confuse that with the Pennsylvania state archives. That’s the physical repository in Harrisburg. The published Pennsylvania archives is a collection of 138 volumes of records. And it covers the year 1664 to 1780. So the latter part of those records are right when our Pennsylvania German ancestors were coming. So it’s really important for Pennsylvania German research. There are a lot of records here. There’s 10 series and they’ve all been scanned and digitized.
Alice Childs (31m 13s):
And it’s really cool because fold three has these available for free. You don’t have to have a subscription and you can search it or browse it at full three. So that is really awesome. The description at full three talks about it. It says there are many valuable transcribed lists and documents available in the Pennsylvania archives publication. People from all walks of life are mentioned. If your ancestor or research focus married was baptized, paid taxes was in the militia, ran for office, wrote to the government for help was a foreigner who entered the portal of Philadelphia owned or attempted to own land or wrote a diary or journal just to name a few, then he, or she could be mentioned.
Alice Childs (31m 53s):
So this is a really great resource for us for researching our Pennsylvania German ancestors. And because it is a huge collection, it can be a little bit confusing. So the Pennsylvania historical and museum commission, which is the online site for the Pennsylvania state archives, they’ve created a quick reference guide and it summarizes what’s contained in each series of the published Pennsylvania archives. And Wikipedia also has a Pennsylvania archives page, and that lists the contents of every volume of the first seven series. So, and then it links to them. You can, they’re also on internet archive, but I like using it for all three because you can do a name search.
Alice Childs (32m 34s):
So anyway, that’s a really great resource for getting started with your research on Pennsylvania, Germans.
Diana (32m 41s):
Wow. And how wonderful that it is for free on full three.
Nicole (32m 46s):
Wow. That’s a huge time span and a lot of different records. And that’s amazing, but the fact that it’s named searchable is really helpful.
Alice Childs (32m 55s):
Wow. Well, and they have, you know, when I was researching my Jacob Fisher, I was trying to distinguish between two Jacob fishers in north Hampton county and they had all the militia lists. And so I found Jacob fishers from two different townships and, you know, and I was able to compare their people that they were in the militia with all with the Pennsylvania archives, you know, the militia list in the Pennsylvania archives books. So it is a really great resource.
Diana (33m 20s):
Well, let’s talk about some additional resources for Pennsylvania German research. What else is out there for us?
Alice Childs (33m 29s):
Yes. So there are some great resources that can help get you started in, we’re going to dive into some record types in our upcoming podcasts, but just generally there are some great resources. The German genealogy society has a really great website called Palatines to America. So that’s a great resource with some information and helps Cindy’s list is also a really good place to go. She has a page dedicated to resources for research about Palatine, Germans and family search in the research Wiki. They have a Pennsylvania colonial records page, so that’s a great place to go. It has a list of online records and a great bibliography of sources that you can use for researching in this time.
Alice Childs (34m 12s):
Period. It also has a little section that’s specific to German settlements. So that’s a great, great one. There are also a lot of online and print guides for Pennsylvania research in general, like we talked about, they did live in Pennsylvania so that they will be having records that are similar to other Pennsylvania ones. So you can go to the Pennsylvania Wiki page and the Pennsylvania catalog, the same places that you go to start looking for resources for Pennsylvania research ancestry also has a Pennsylvania research guide, and it has a nice timeline and links to different record types that you’ll find to ancestry. And they have a few that pertain to the current time period for our Pennsylvania Germans.
Alice Childs (34m 53s):
So that’s a great place to go. There’s also the research in the states series from the NGS. I don’t know if you have used those wifey they’re fantastic books and they have an overall guide for Pennsylvania researchers. And that’s really good. And another valuable print guide is called Pennsylvania line a research guide to Pennsylvania, genealogy and local history by William L Iscrupe. I don’t know how to say his name. I apologize. I S C R U P E. So those are some resources to help you get started and help you learn what kinds of records are available and what you should be looking for all stuff you can add to your locality guide.
Diana (35m 32s):
Yes, those are wonderful resources. Thank you so much for walking us through all of this beginning phase of researching our Pennsylvania, German ancestors.
Alice Childs (35m 43s):
We’re ready to start taking a deeper dive into some other record types. And I’m looking forward to going along this line and discussing these records in the next couple of episodes.
Nicole (35m 53s):
Me too. Thanks, Alice. All right, everyone. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you again next week. Bye bye.
Diana (35m 59s):
Bye. Bye everyone.
Nicole (36m 38s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.
Links
Part 2: Pennsylvania Germans: Journey to a New Land by Alice Childs – https://familylocket.com/part-2-pennsylvania-germans-journey-to-a-new-land/
Part 3: Pennsylvania Germans: Guiding Principles for Research by Alice Childs – https://familylocket.com/part-3-pennsylvania-germans-guiding-principles-for-research/
Research Like a Pro Resources
Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide book by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer on Amazon.com – https://amzn.to/2x0ku3d
Research Like a Pro eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-e-course/
RLP Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-study-group/
Research Like a Pro with DNA Resources
Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist’s Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence book by Diana Elder, Nicole Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin – https://amzn.to/3gn0hKx
Research Like a Pro with DNA eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-ecourse/
RLP with DNA Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-study-group/
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