The Rev. Caspar Stöver, the first dedicated minister to the Second Colony, wrote in 1738 that the group came from Alsace, Palatinate and neighboring areas. It now appears that the Rev. Stöver's knowledge of geography was weak, perhaps in part because this region was not his native area.
Individuals doing research in the German records found the home of the Willheits and the Blanckenbuehlers which were not too far from each other. While the Willheits were not members of the Second Colony, they did come quite early. On the theory that "birds of a feather flock together", Gary Zimmerman and Johni Cerny decided it might be profitable to search in neighboring villages for traces of families that might be identified with the Second Colony Germans even if they weren't exact members of the group. The hypothesis proved to be true; about fifty families were found in the Neckar region. If one were in excellent physical condition, you might run among all of the home villages in one day (well, at least most of them).
The Neckar region is not a political unit; it is a geographical definition. On the Rhine River, find the Neckar River which flows past Heidelberg to the west and toward the Rhine. Going upstream on the Neckar, it flows from the east first and then flows from the south. This makes a region bounded by the Rhine on the west and by the Neckar on the north and the east which is called the Neckar region.
In 1717, there were four major political regions in this area. The best name recognition goes to Baden and to Württemberg. There were also the lands belonging to the Bishops of Speyer. The Blanckenbühlers lived here.
Nearer to Heidelberg and also across the Rhine River to the west was the Palatinate region and a few of the 1717 Germans came from there. A few families came from just outside the Neckar region and one, the Harnsberger family, came from Switzerland.
In the course of time, the lands of the church were turned over to civil authorities and so the lands of the Bishops of Speyer became a part of Baden. This is the definition used today to index the records in the genealogical libraries. We could say that the biggest percentage of the 1717ers came from Baden-Württemberg since these entities have been joined in one modern state.
The occupations tended to the rural and trades. Thus there were weavers, tailors, coopers, vineyard tenders and even a goose herder. This last job was probably an entry level position in the work force, akin to serving hamburgers at McDonalds.
The primary source of the data in Germany is the church records which usually contain births (more exactly baptisms), marriages, and deaths. These are the easiest to read because of the stylized format though the uneven handwriting in the German script challenges one (people do learn to translate these records even without a knowledge of German). There are civil records also but one needs more knowledge of German here. Also, since most of the research is done from here (USA), microfilms are necessary. Thanks to the Latter Day Saints, many of the church books, but not all, have been microfilmed.
Readers of these notes from Germany (there are some) may wish to comment with more authority than I can offer. And of course, everyone is welcome to send comments and questions.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.