Marc Wheat, one of the Trustees of the Germanna Foundation, is very interested in building the resources in the Germanna Foundation’s new library. He has started in a small way with some in-depth research on an ancestor of his, the Rev. Johann Henrich Häger. He has uncovered several situations where it would be desirable to obtain some more information.
One of the general questions that he has posed is the extent of the involvement by people from Siegen in the exodus of 1709 from Germany. Not all of the people in this exodus of ten to fifteen thousand souls made it to America, the hoped-for destination. Many of them did go to New York, while some of them went to Ireland. Some of them were distributed throughout England, some of them went to North Carolina, and I believe some of them went to Bermuda, though I could be wrong on this last point. Thanks to the work of Hank Z. Jones, the story of these Germans in New York, and in Ireland, has been told in the most detail, even though he is not the only worker in this field. The New York story is detailed by Jones in " The Palatine Families of New York 1710 ". I have given a sketch here in these notes on the participation by Siegen-area families in the New York operation. It is a question that has not been answered. Did some of the Siegen area people go to Ireland, England, North Carolina, or other place?
Lists of names of people who left Holland for London were made by the Dutch, and copies (maybe the originals) of the lists are maintained in the Public Record Office in England. Knittle, in " Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration ", gives about 10,000 of these people (most children are not named). [The lists in Knittle have been alphabetized, which is a no-no because of the destruction of relationships between relatives and friends.] I understand the Public Record Office lists are not alphabetized. Using the lists is a bit of a challenge, since they were prepared by the Dutch, who have their own rules of spelling. For example, Sebastian Fischer in Germany is Sebastiaan Vischer in Holland, is Sebastian Fisher in America. Knittle also gives lists of German Catholics returned to Germany (because they were Catholic). He also gives the New York subsistence list, which includes names such Johann Friderich Häger. The Simmendinger list of New York German names is also included in Knittle.
Two books that I recommend for the library are:
1. Hank Z Jones, " The Palatine Families of New York 1710 ".
2. Walter Allen Knittle, " Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration ".
The Foundation library is just being cataloged; however, a number of people have been working hard to organize it, and they are making good progress. Maybe someone has copies of the above two books that they would like to donate to the library. I believe that the books can be readily obtained. If you would like someone to talk to at the Foundation about your donation, let me suggest Marc Wheat, whose email address is
MarcWheat@patron.com
, or his wife Marie at
mwheat@patriot.net
. Maybe he will have a better suggestion for a contact.
(17 Jul 01)
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.