I am continuing with my search of history to figure out when my ancestors may have arrived in America. I looked at confirmed connections starting at the top of my tree and the first one, Hans Jacob Hertzel was born about 1716 in Reihen, Sinsheim, Kurfurstentum Pfalz, Heiliges Roischas Reich. Aren’t I glad that I don’t have to put that on all the documents I fill out today!? He died in Easton, Northampton, Pennsylvania about 1781. When I look at his children, they were all born in Pennsylvania, the earliest in 1741 so my best guess is that he arrived between 1716 and 1741. But wait! He married in Pennsylvania in about 1735 so that narrows his arrival to between 1716 and 1735.

I haven’t looked any further to find documentation of his immigration or naturalization, but I started with the history of the area which was founded by Thomas Penn, and named after his wife’s “home-estate” of Easton-Neston, Northamptonshire, England. It was eventually one of only 3 public readings of the Declaration of Independence. ( www.eastonpa.com) According to Google it was a “strong German community during the 1740s with lots of German, Swiss, and Alsatian (from Alsace region of NE France) immigrants and was at the time part of Bucks County. All of these groups could have been my ancestorial groups.

One of the things I found interesting was that lots of these early pioneers were Pennsylvania German, sometimes referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch or Deutsch. I  found this interesting because the family stories were that we were Pennsylvania Dutch so maybe, besides the actually name, the stories were not that far off. I hope that my family history work in some way helps you to find new ways to find your stories.

I will continue to research the histories of these communities and look for connections that could help confirm where the family came from. I don’t think I use, I know that I don’t use AI the way our speaker suggested. My biggest take away from her presentation is that there are several AI resources that can be useful but you must pick the right tool for the research you are doing. My words, you don’t use a hammer to put in a screw.

Our next presentation will be about Norwegians in America. It should be very interesting but don’t dismay if you don’t have Norwegian roots. As we always say, “you can learn from any presentation, just be open to new ideas.” So sign-up if you haven’t already!

We only have one class in August and that is on Germany, maybe I can use that one. Our other class on the Power of Clues was cancelled because the speaker had conflicts.

Now I am going to get ready to play with my newest descendants which is why we do all this family history stuff, right?

Heidi Geise, education@hqrl.com