What is a Palatine? First the name is of English origin to denote someone who lived in the Palatinate (another English word). Where is the Palatinate? Classically, it is the German lands on the west bank of the Rhine River for about one hundred kilometers above and below the city of Wiesbaden (which is on the east bank). The Palatinate extends to the west from the Rhine for more than one hundred kilometers. The German name for the modern state is Rheinland-Pfalz. During its history, the Palatinate has shifted its boundaries and has included lands to the east of the Rhine River including some that were not included with the western lands. At one time the town of Heidelberg, on the east bank of the Rhine, was the seat of the government.
During 1709, thousands of Palatine Germans fled destruction from the invading and marauding French. Of the thousands who sought refuge in England with the hope of transportation to America, a large percentage were Palatines. So many of the Germans were from the Palatinate, the English started calling all Germans "Palatines", regardless of the region of their origin. Thus the word Palatine, besides denoting a citizen of the Palatinate, is used by in the english-speaking world to mean "German." One cannot tell, when the word Palatine is used, whether the reference is to all Germans, or to specific Germans.
Willis Kemper, who wrote Kemper and Fishback genealogies, seemed to feel that Palatines were inferior, especially to the people from Nassau-Siegen. At one time, I did a study, not for the purpose of comparing people but to answer other questions. Some of the results though bear upon the question of the comparison that he made.
One of the questions that I asked was whether any people left the region of Siegen during the mass immigration of 1709. The answer is that a very large number did. I made a count in the following way. I used Hank Z Jones, Jr.'s "The Palatine Families of New York 1710", which gives the German origins of the New York families (that he could find). Since he indexed the German geographical names, it was fairly easy to locate the names. What I found was about two hundred people around Siegen who had come from a circle of perhaps 15 miles.
Since about 15,000 people left Germany for London in 1709, and only about 3,000 made it to New York, it would appear that the number of 200 people should be multiplied by a number in the order of five to arrive at the number who left the vicinity of Siegen. Thus the number who left should be measured in the several hundreds. Whatever the reasons were that the Palatines had for leaving, it would seem that there must have been similar reasons for the Siegenlanders. When one considers this, it weakens the comparison that Kemper drew between the Palatines and the Siegenlanders.
This number of people would have had a big impact on the emigration of 1713. First, they broke the ice and showed that it could be done. It is entirely possible that they sent letters home which were encouraging, though the experience in New York was not the best in the early years. Every member of the First Germanna Colony must have known someone who went in 1709. In fact, several of them were probably relatives. The names of the emigrants' duplicate names in the family trees of the 1713 people. Here are some of the names: Bähr, Giesler, Haeger, Häger, Heyl, Hoffman, Jung, Ohrendorff, Schramm, Weller, and Zeller. As one reads the ancestry of these people, one encounters names associated with the Germanna people.
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.