The Pennsylvania Dutch settled in the Delaware Valley, also known as the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. This large area includes South Central Pennsylvania, stretching in an arc from Bethlehem and Allentown in the Lehigh Valley westward through Reading, Lebanon, and Lancaster to York and Chambersburg. They were Germans, persecuted for religious beliefs, and arrived in America in droves.
Their origin was chiefly from the Upper Rhine and the Neckar region, the latter furnishing the Arabian or Rhenish Bavarian element. The Upper Rhine (German: Oberrhein [ˈoːbɐˌʁaɪn]; French: Rhin Supérieur) is the section of the Rhine between Basel in Switzerland and Bingen in Germany, surrounded by the Upper Rhine Plain.
Researchers will also find that the Germans in this region were called Pennsylvania Dutch. Germans refer to themselves as Deutsch, which 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 are learning no other language but that mostly spoke English.
Many spoke both languages vernacularly, with the pure sounds of each, as in distinguishing German tōd (death) from English toad; or English winter from German winter, with a different w, a lengthened n, a flat t, and a trilled r—four distinctions which are natural to our speech.
Even when very young, children may speak English entirely with their parents and German with their grandparents. Of two house painters (father and son), the father always speaks German and the son English, whether speaking together or with others. The family’s males, being more abroad than the females, learn English more readily. While the father, mother, daughters, and servants may speak German, the father and son may speak English together naturally and not have two languages, as in Russia.
Since Pennsylvania was the main port thoroughfare, this is where they found their home. The language is, therefore, South German, as brought in by emigrants from Rhenish Bavaria, Baden, Alsace (Alsatia), Würtemberg, German Switzerland, and Darmstadt. There were also natives from other regions, with certain French Neutrals deported from Nova Scotia to various parts of the United States, including the county of Lancaster, where some families with French names from Alsace settled. Thus, the terms Jenkins, Evans, Owen, Foulke, Griffith, Morgan, and Jones occur in the county of Chester.
Genealogy Tips – the Pennsylvania Dutch
Where to search for your Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors in Pennsylvania —- Bethlehem, Allentown (Lehigh Valley), Reading, Lebanon, Lancaster, York, and Chambersburg. For the genealogist researching the origin of his progenitors, the following German and Anglicised forms must be compared.
