Klaus Wust estimated, based on his research, that the migration out of Germany to America amounted to more than a thousand people in the year 1717. Most of these left at a reasonable time, early in the year, probably in the spring of the year. We know that the group which left Gemmingen, though, was somewhat later, more exactly, according to the Sexton's word at the church, on July 12. Sexton Weber said also that many other people from other places had left their homes with similar intentions. There is no reason to believe that the people all left at the same time.
If they did not come together on the journey, they seemed to have coalesced in London at the German Lutheran Church of St. Mary le Savoy. It is only natural that they would have sought out their fellow countrymen. They all faced the same problem of finding transportation to America. They seem to have found a captain, this late in the season, who would take them. I have proposed that the man was Andrew Tarbett and the ship was the Scott. Then he was tossed in Debtor's prison which caused a delay while he sought a solution.
It appears that the number of Germans who wanted to go was more than the eighty or so that Spotswood and the Virginia Germans implied were involved. I can see three reasons that some of the Germans did not make it to Virginia. (These are my own ideas.) First, the ship Scott may have been too small to carry more than 80. Or, Spotswood had expressed an interest in only 80 Germans. Or thirdly, some of the Germans got tired of the uncertainty and delay and started back to Germany.
We know only now that some of the Germans were sent back to Rotterdam. The exact number awaits more research, but we know of two, Frederick Kapeler and Christoph Uhl, both of whom came from Sulzfeld where Christopher Zimmerman came from. Later, these two came to Virginia, probably about 1719. Maybe, as we do some more research, we will find some other names that we recognize.
In the London baptisms there are names that we do not recognize, and there may be others who had intended on going to Pennsylvania in 1717 but could not make the trip as planned. One of these, Hans Nicholas Weiss, had Jurgen Meyer and Hans Adam Rausch as sponsors for the baptism of his son. Possible descendants of the later two men might want to track down Nicholas Weiss to see if his origins are known.
Johann Seitz has a baby son baptized with sponsors, Christoph Zimmerman, Jürgen Scheibel, and Magdalena Niederman. We know where Christopher and George were from and we ought to keep our eyes open for the names Seitz and Niederman.
(12 Nov 03)
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.