German Palatines and Tim McGraw

I found it interesting to hear about Tim McGraw’s German Palatine background when watching him on the TV show Who Do You Think You Are? .

The historian on the TV show said that the term Palatine is what the English called the Germans, and while that is so, the Palatine is actually a specific area of Germany.  See map.

Having Palatine ancestors myself, I feel a connection to Tim McGraw’s ancestry (and apparently Elvis’ ancestry too since his ancestors were on the same ship coming over as Tim’s). 

Palatines immigrated to the British colonies before the American Revolution and Tim McGraw’s Palatine ancestors, who were some of the first to arrive, came to New York in 1710.

My Palatine ancestors came to Pennsylvania in the mid-1700’s.  Since the English in Philadelphia didn’t want the German immigrants in the city of Philadelphia,  they sold them land outside the city so these German settlers could act as a buffer between the Indians and the English in Philadelphia.   That land which later became known as Lancaster county turned out the be some of the most fertile land in the country.  The descendants of these Palatines became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsylvania Deutch or Pennsylvania German).

Other Palatines settled up and down the east coast.  Like other early settlers, they were subject to terrible privations and extreme hardships.

If you are interested in learning more about the story of the Palatines, where they settled, and the hardships they bore, there is an free online transcription of the fascinating History of the Palatine Immigration  written by Daniel Rupp in 1876.

Like Tim McGraw’s ancestor, Johan Jost Hayd, many of the German immigrants eventually prospered.

Some Palatine German Immigration books are free to read on Ancestry.com

• PA Immigrants, 1770- 1775
• Pennsylvania German Pioneers

I read once that each Palatine who immigrated in the 1700s has 10,000 descendants, so there are many of us in the US who descended from these brave immigrants.  Have you been able to trace your ancestry back the the 1700s?  Start your FREE family tree online to enter what you already know about yourself and have Ancestry.com help you find your family story.

Schwenkenfelder Day

September 24th is Schwenkenfelder Day, the September Thanksgiving, the day some Pennsylvania Germans celebrate Thankgiving.

On September 24, 1734, shortly after their arrival in Pennsylvania, the Schwenkenfelders celebrated their first Gedaechtnisz Tag, the September Thanksgiving. It is the oldest continuous Thanksgiving tradition in America.

The Schwenkenfelders are Plain People who are the followers of the Anabaptist mystic, Kasper Schwenkfeld von Ossig, a contemporary of Martin Luther, born in 1490 of an old aristocratic family in the Duchy of Leibnitz. Schwenkenfelders were prosecuted everywhere in Europe until they fled in 1733 and 1734 to Pennsylvania because of its religious freedom.

Schwenkfelders

Schwenckfelder Passenger Ships:
Pennsylvania Merchant 1733
St. Andrew 1734

Ancestry.com Canadian Border Crossings

Ancestry.com has added the Canadian Border Crossing (1895 to 1956) to its already huge immigration collection at Canadian Border Crossings, 1895-1956

PROVO, Utah, March 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Ancestry.com, the world's largest online resource for family history, today announced the addition of the first and only online collection of more than 4 million names of individuals who crossed the U.S.-Canadian border between 1895 and 1956.

This is an important but often overlooked immigration route since passage was generally cheaper to travel to the U. S. via Canada. It was also an easier way to gain access to the U.S. so some passengers arrived in Canada with the intention of heading straight to the United States.

These new records at Ancestry.com include both immigrants who first sailed to or settled in Canada before continuing to the U.S. as well as U.S. and Canadian citizens (after 1906 only) crossing the border.

The records include more than 100 ports of entry including Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Detroit, Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto.

Some of my Irish ancestors immigrated to the United States via Canada. They lived in Canada for 10 years before entering the U.S. in 1840, well before records were kept for Canada/U.S crossings. But my ancestors chose Canada for the same two reasons people did much later. First, the fare was cheaper and second, as Irish citizens traveling to Canada in the 1830s, they would still be under the UK.

More passenger lists can be found at Passenger Lists to USA including the Great Lakes Crossings from Canada to the US.

Atlantic County New Jersey Digitized Records

The Atlantic County Library of New Jersey has a Digitized Records Collection at

http://www.atlanticlibrary.org/collections/digitized/index.asp (URL updated)

The Atlantic County library is home to thousands of historic documents which they are posting on-line as an ongoing project. This collection includes:

• Newspaper
• Immigration (1890-1930)
• Civil War
• Wills

Since my grandparents had lived in Atlantic City, NJ for about 15 years, I thought I would take a look.

Historic Newspapers
The site has about 10 different newspapers digitized. They look interesting, but they are large PDF files that are not searchable. These will take quite a bit of time to peruse but it appears to concentrate on Atlantic County happenings, so I think it will be worthwhile to take the time to do so.

Civil War Muster-Out Records
The Civil War section has the muster-out records of Atlantic County's US Civil War Veterans. This section also includes links to Civil War-era newspapers. While this is a great collection, it won't be of any value to me because my grandfather immigrated to the US after the Civil War.

Immigration Records
The immigration sections has thousands of immigration records (declarations and letters of intent) from 1890-1930 that they are indexing and posting to their website.

I've searched a long, long time for my grandfather's passenger list from Germany to the U.S. I knew he immigrated sometime between 1885 and 1889 based on information I found in the US census of 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930, but as it tends to do, the census gave me conflicting information from year to year. I have previously searched the Ancestry.com passenger lists using every search trick I knew, but with no luck. I used to joke that he must have swum over, but I can't say that anymore, because here I found a digitized image of his declaration of intent!!!! The declaration says he was on the ship Hammonia which arrived in December of 1886, but when I checked Ancestry, it has no passenger list for the Hammonia in Dec, 1886. I'll have to send for his naturalization papers which should tell me the exact date of immigration. This is a great find for me. I had previously thought he was naturalized while he lived in Philadelphia. No wonder I had never found him.

Wills
This section has Wills, Letters of Administration and Guardianship, and Minutes of Orphans Court Records. I did a quick check and didn't find anything, but I'll have to come back later when I have more time to peruse.

If you have anyone who has ever lived in Atlantic City, New Jersey, this is a wonderful collection. Happy Searching.

Additional New Jersey Database Searches

AncestorsOnBoard Now Online

http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/ (Subscription Based)
Ancestors On Board is now online. The site states:

Passenger lists with over 30 million records from ships sailing to destinations
worldwide.

Findmypast.com, in association with The National Archives, has opened ancestorsonboard, a new database featuring Outward Passenger Lists for long-distance voyages leaving the British Isles from 1960 right back to 1890.

With ancestorsonboard, you can search for records of individuals or groups of people leaving for destinations including Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and USA featuring ports such as Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Images of the passenger lists are available to download, view, save and print.

You can search many passenger lists to the US including Ellis Island, Castle Garden, and other ports at

Immigrant Passenger Lists
Passenger Lists Database Searches to USA

Pennsylvania Dutch Thanksgiving

September 24th is Schwenkenfelder Day, the day some Pennsylvania Germans celebrate Thankgiving.



On September 24, 1734, shortly after their arrival in Pennsylvania, the Schwenkenfelders celebrated their first Gedaechtnisz Tag, the September Thanksgiving. Though less than 3,000 people in Pennsylvania still observe Schwenkenfelder Day, it is the oldest continuous Thanksgiving tradition in America.



Who are the Schwenkenfelders? They are 'Plain People' who are the followers of the Anabaptist mystic, Kasper Schwenkfeld von Ossig, a contemporary of Martin Luther, born in 1490 of an old aristocratic family in the Duchy of Leibnitz. They were prosecuted everywhere in Europe until they fled in 1733/34 to Pennsylvania because of its religious freedom. Schwenkfelders Schwenckfelder Passenger Ships: Pennsylvania Merchant 1733 St. Andrew 1734