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PennsylvaniaOther than the few Germans who were part of the New Amsterdam Colony in present-day New York, the first German settlement in North America was at Germantown, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1683. Passenger lists from 1683-1726, 1809-1819 do not exist and are being reconstructed on this site. Wilhelmius and Rieger estimated in 1730/1731 that there were about 15,000 German and Swiss immigrants in Pennsylvania by that time. If anyone knows of references to emigrants who came during these years that information may be helpful in reconstructing a list of those emigrants. A recruiter for the Pennsylvania colony in Germany in 1684 recommended that rather than going from Rotterdam to Pennsylvania, that emigrants go to New York and journey overland 2-3 days from there to Pennsylvania. Most of the earliest emigrants (c.1686-1700) to Pennsylvania therefore probably came via New York.
In 1934 the Pennsylvania German Society published a three volume set of passenger lists of Germans to the port of Philadelphia from 1727-1808, compiled by Ralph Beaver Strassburger and William John Hinke. These volumes were reprinted in 1992 and are available through Picton Press. These volumes include 508 ship lists of primarily German and Swiss immigrants. Most of these list include only the name of the head of household and single men (over 15/16 years old). This project will be primarily to reconstruct complete lists of all those on each ship, their ages, place of origin, and other information. Those at Ancestry.com have shared an electronic copy of the Strassburger-Hinke lists which will be used as the basis for the reconstructed passenger lists. In exchange for this, they will be given regular updates as this database grows for their site.
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