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Zweibrucken, and other principalities in southern
Germany to settle in Pennsylvania between 1683 and
1776 and establish a new way of life in their adopted
homeland. The author pinpoints the different waves
of colonial Germans and Swiss and illustrates the
pivotal roles played by such personalities as William
Penn, Francis Daniel Pastorius, and Henry Melchior
Muhlenberg in helping launch communities in Philadelphia,
in Lancaster and Berks counties, and ultimately
throughout Pennsylvania. The entire process
of immigration is captured in vivid descriptions of
(often unscrupulous) immigrant recruitment, the
difficult passage across the Atlantic, indentured servitude,
and settling on the land. Most of these immigrants
were farmers, and their customs and manners
are recounted in an examination of housing, provisions,
agricultural methods, superstitions, and so
forth. There is a chapter on language, literature, and
education and a separate appendix on German family
names. Perhaps the most informative chapter in
the book covers the extraordinarily diverse religious
life of these Protestant Germans, which, while dominated
by the Lutheran and Reformed churches, also
accommodated Moravians, Mennonites, Brethren,
Dunkards, Seventh-Day Baptists, Schwenkfelders,
and others. Concluding as it does with a chapter on
the Revolution, in which we discover which Pennsylvania-Germans
were patriots and which were
pacifists, The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial
Pennsylvania is one volume that will hold the interest
of Americans of colonial German descent from
cover to cover.
South Carolina
Edgefield County, South Carolina
Deed Books 42 and 43
Abstracted by Carol Wells;
2008; 5.5x8.5; 238 pp; softbound.
Order from the publisher
at: Heritage Books,
Inc., 100 Railroad Ave.,
Suite 104, Westminster, MD
21157; Phone 800-876-6103;
Fax 410-871-2674 or www.
heritagebooks.com; W4509;
ISBN: 078844509X; $24.50
plus $7.00 p&h.
The deed book abstracts
in this volume were gleaned
from documents that were recorded between 1826
and 1829. In addition to the names, dates, and land
descriptions one would expect to find in such records,
these deed abstracts also reveal names of
children and neighbors, ties to other areas, clues to
family wealth (or lack of), names of wives, mothers,
slaves, previous spouses, kinship, etc. These pages
contain deeds of trust for protection of wives and
small children from a husband’s financial troubles;
prenuptial agreements; depositions; powers of attorney
connecting different places; sheriff sales to partition
estates or settle lawsuits, which often include
the names of slaves. Chains of title reach back to the
18th century original grantees and list the names of
subsequent owners. The names of witnesses, adjoining
landowners, heirs, churches, branches, creeks,
bridges, and ferries are included. The deeds are presented
in original page number order with a full
name index.
People and Professions of Charleston,
South Carolina 1782-1802
By James W. Hagy; Originally
printed in 1992; Reprinted
2008; 5.5x8.5; 112 pp; softbound;
indexed. Order from
the publisher at: Clearfield
Company, Inc., 3600 Clipper
Mill Road, Suite 260, Baltimore,
MD 21211; or www.
genealogical.com; CF9135;
ISBN: 9780806313238; $19.50
plus $4.00 p&h.
This publication affords
us as close a glimpse of the
population of Charleston, South Carolina during the
last quarter of the 18th century as we are likely to
come by. Professor Hagy has compiled all the names
and other pertinent genealogical information that
can be found in the Charleston city directories of
1782, 1785, 1790, 1794, 1796, 1801, and 1802 and in
the federal censuses for Charleston for 1790 and
1800. In assembling his data, the author has chosen
to respect the integrity of his sources, thus the
contents of each directory or census are arranged
in a separate alphabetical sequence, preceded by a
brief commentary concerning the methods used by
the original compilers in producing the directory or
census in question. In the case of the city directories,
the names of inhabitants are followed by their occupations
and addresses; for the censuses of 1790
and 1800, only the names of the heads of household
appear. Since a given individual may appear/disappear
in as many as nine different listings spanning
a 20-year period, the People and Professions of
Charleston affords genealogists the rare opportunity
of tracing the mobility or migration of a given ancestor
at very close range. While this work cannot
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