A church record in the Gemmingen parish register (in Baden), gives a lot of information about the Second Colony. The pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran church wrote in the death register (in translation):
"12 July 1717, the following listed parents, together with their children, expect to move away from here, wanting to take ship to Pennsylvania, and there in the hardship of the wilderness better their piece of bread than they could here. Not just from here, however, but many people are leaving other villages as well, with the same intention."
We are indebted to Gary Zimmerman and Johni Cerny for bringing this to public view. If you are interested in reading their work, contact American Genealogical Lending Library, P.O. Box 244, Bountiful, UT 84011 and ask about the Before Germanna series.
With fairly high confidence, we can set the date of departure as July, a rather late date in the year. With the delays that were incurred in transit, this makes me believe that the group probably did not arrive until after 31 December 1717. The destination was Pennsylvania, though the captain did take them to Virginia. Their reason for going is economic, not religious. The emigration was not just from this village but from nearby villages also.
Interestingly, the pastor wrote all of this in the death register. This is indicative of the general attitude in Germany; leaving Germany was likened unto death. The church leadership also failed to support the emigrants in the New World and they, the immigrants, were left to devise their own solutions.
The pastor then proceeded to list six families with all household members who were going including their ages. Four of the six families are known later in Virginia. The fifth family is known to have arrived Virginia but there is no further record of them. The sixth family may have been able to get on a boat going to Pennsylvania. The families are:
Matthaus Schmidt, wife and two children.
Hans Michael Schmidt, wife, two children and two unnamed in-laws.
Hans Michael Klaar, wife, two children.
Joseph Weber, wife, two children.
Lorentz Bekh, wife, four children.
Hans Michael Mihlekher, wife, two children, wife's sister.
The Smith, Clore and Weaver families are members of the Second Colony (using their Anglicized names).
The Weaver family was a surprise as they had been thought to be later comers. The two Smith men were brothers (from the parish register). Also from the parish register, it was learned that the wife of Joseph Weber was the sister of Michael Klaar. This was the general pattern, there were more relationships than had been suspected. They generally came in village and family groups. The lone immigrant family is rare, but they do exist.
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.