The first emigration from the villages of the northern Kraichgau to North America occurred after the disastrous agricultural winter of 1708-1709. These few set the pattern which was to be repeated many times over. (A special case occurred in Schwaigern in 1713 when a "witch" was burned. Some of her relatives thought it best to leave the village.) Trickles of emigrants turned into a flood as previous emigrants wrote home or earlier emigrants returned for a visit.
Whether the immigration was to New York or to Pennsylvania, it established new routes for the villagers of the Kraichgau who had been emigrating to eastern Europe for centuries. Many times the emigrants to Pennsylvania even had a specific township in mind. Invariably this was the site where previous emigrants had settled.
The northern Kraichgauers, and all Germans, tended to emigrate with other family members and villagers on the same ship or in the same year. For example, in 1732 fifty individuals emigrated from Schwaigern, but in the next year none. In 1743, thirty-three, but in the next year none. In the year 1748, no emigrants are known to have left Schwaigern, but in the next year sixty-seven left. It was rare for a single family to travel alone when they emigrated. The pastor of Gemmingen recorded that six families left together in the year 1717. The group continued to travel together until they reached the new world.
In the period 1717 to 1775, only five percent of the surnames of the emigrants from Schwaigern were unique. That is, of the 305 known emigrants from Schwaigern in this period, only fifteen had surnames which were not duplicated by another emigrant. In most of these cases, the individuals had married someone whose surname was duplicated.
Thus, the general rule is that emigrants tended to travel with others of their family (same surname), on the same ship (based on the records at Philadelphia), and in the same year. This is a general rule that Hank Z. Jones has discussed so widely. He even found that in the lists of names, adjacent names were often from the same villages. Thus, they provided mutual support.
They needed mutual help, for the problems facing them were severe and often unusual. On arrival, they had to settle with the captain and other creditors, perhaps they had to recover from illness, and they had to find friends who had come before them. Some of the business had to be conducted in a new language, English. It was a strange new world with many uncertainties.
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.