Historic Allentown, Pennsylvania compliments of Pinterest.com.
You might be surprised to learn that you have some German ancestors. The reason is that it was the Germans, Irish, and Scottish populations who sent the most emigrants to America. Every generation researched doubles the generations on your chart.
The dialect of German known as “Pennsylvania Dutch” originates from a widely scattered agricultural population. Several dialects were brought chiefly from the region of the Upper Rhine, and the Neckar Rivers, the latter furnishing the Suabian or Rhenish Bavarian element. The language is therefore “South German”, as brought in by emigrants from Rhenish Bavaria, Baden, Alsace (Alsatia), Würtemberg, German Switzerland, and Darmstadt.
Also, there were natives from other regions, as well as certain French Neutrals, deported from Nova Scotia to various parts of the United States, including the county of Lancaster in Pennsylvania. These persons, and probably some families with French names from Alsace, are indicated by a few proper names, like Roberdeau, Lebo, Deshong, and Shunk (both for Dejean), and an occasional word like júschtaménnt (in German spelling), the French dialect.
Welsh names like Jenkins, Evans, Owen, Foulke, Griffith, Morgan, and Jones occur, with the township names of Brecknock, Caernarvon, Lampeter, Leacock (‘Lea’ as lay), and in the next county of Chester — Gwinedd and Tredyffrin; but there seems to have been no fusion between Welsh and German, probably because the Welsh may have spoken English. Local names like Hanover, Heidelberg, and Manheim, indicate whence some of the early residents came.
The French-American names appear in German Pennsylvania, in Bechtelville, Engelsville, Greshville, Lederachsville, Scherksville, Schwenksville, Silberlingsville, Wernersville, Zieglerville; paralleled by the English town in Kutztown, Mertztown, Schäfferstown, Straustown; burg in Ickesburg, Landisburg, Rehrersburg; and the German dorf has a representative in Womelsdorf.
The Pennsylvania German dialect did not occur in the counties along the northern border of the state, but it did eventually extend into Maryland, Western Virginia, Ohio, and farther west; and it has some representatives in western New York, and even in Canada.
In many of the cities of the United States, such as Pittsburg, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Saint Louis, recent large accessions from Germany have brought in true German, and to some extent added a German population in the city of New York. The newer Teutonic population differs from the older in living to a great extent in the towns, where they are consumers of beer and tobacco — luxuries to which the older stock and their descendants were and are but little addicted. The numerous allusions to the ‘Fatherland’ to be met with, belong to the foreign Germans. Those migrants to America ultimately became completely naturalized, notwithstanding their language.
So when did this great migration begin? Several thousand Germans had entered Pennsylvania before the year 1689, and it is believed that they numbered 100,000 in 1742, and in 1763 they numbered some 280,000 people.
If you are searching for your ancestors, you must consider that the Pennsylvania Germans congregated together in groups until they were prepared to move on. Their dialect was found chiefly to be southeast of the Allegheny Mountains, excluding several counties near Philadelphia.
Germantown is six miles from Philadelphia. Although it was settled by Germans, it seems to have lost its German character. The dialect was heard mostly by the towns of Easton on Delaware, Reading on the Schuylkill, Allentown on the Lehigh, Harrisburg on the Susquehanna, Lebanon, Lancaster, and York counties.
A fair proportion of the emigrants, including the clergy, were educated, and education has never been neglected among them. The excellent female boarding school of the Moravians was well supported, not only by the people of the interior but also by the English-speaking population of the large cities. In the Southern States, the education was more in the English dialects, irrespective of the fact that both German and French were taught in the schools.
Allentown, Pennsylvania early 19th century
Allentown, Pennsylvania was originally part of a 5000 acre tract purchased by William Allen on September 10, 1735. Allentown was a small village of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) farmers and tradesmen. It was in Allentown (and in Lehigh county), that the German element retained its greatest purity, the evidence of which was discovered in the mid-19th century when seventy of the eighty Christian congregations in the county (some of which were over one hundred years old), conducted their Divine service in the German language.
The early settlers were extensive purchasers and occupiers of land, and being thus widely scattered, and having but few good roads, the uniformity of the language is greater than might have been supposed possible. These people seldom became merchants and lawyers, and in the list of attorneys admitted in Lancaster County, commencing with the year 1729, the names are English until 1769, when Hubley and Weitzel appear. From 1793 to 1804, of fifty-two names, three were German; from 1825 to 1835, twenty-four names gave Reigart and Long (the latter anglicized). After 1860 the proportion is greater, for among the nine attorneys admitted in 1866, we find the German names of Urich, Loop, Kauffman, Reinœhl, Seltzer, and Miller.
Pennsylvania Dutch (so-called because Germans call themselves Deutsch is known as a dialect that has been corrupted or enriched by English words and idioms under a pure or modified pronunciation, and spoken by natives, some of them knowing no other language, but most of them speaking or understanding English. Many speak both languages vernacularly, with the pure sounds of each.
Source: Pennsylvania Dutch: A Dialect of South German With an Infusion of English by S. S. Haldeman (1872).
Have you ever heard of St Mary’s in Elk County Pennsylvania? It is in the Northwestern path of the state. It was started as a religious commune to escape the mistreatment of the German Catholics in Philadelphia and Baltimore.