Did these Palatines migrate before 1701?

Question

Trying to determine when these folks arrived in Pennsylvania in order to determine their proper placement in a project.

The people I'm looking at are Anthony Heilman (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Heilman-269) as well as his wife Mary Bergheimer(https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bergheimer-4) and his father Anthony (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Heilman-283)

The profiles claim that Mary and Anthony married in Skippack in 1704, but I can't find any record for their arrival prior to this.

Comments

It looks to me like these people were Mennonites. As such, they probably immigrated to Pennsylvania on Penn's promise of religious freedom, and were not part of the slightly later wave of "Palatines."

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The page https://www.hallmanfamilyassociation.com/who-is-anthony-hallman has information about the discovery of a records (a child's baptism and a land record) showing this man and his wife in Klein Niedesheim, Germany, in 1718. According to the same page, this man was recorded in Skippack in 1720, so the page author concludes that the family must have emigrated in 1719. That places them in the scope of the Palatine Migration project.

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In case it helps, here is a digitization of the 1718 entry described on that page: http://www.archion.de/p/cbba278811/ (requires an Archion account)

Answer 1

I’m not sure.  Part of my family left the Palatines area in 1734 according to village records in that part of Germany.  I know they settled in Pennsylvania before migrating west.

Comments

Google Maps does not locate Klein Neidersheim, the supposed origin village of the father.  It suggests Nettersheim, which lies on the fringes of the Palatinate.  Generally, profiles in the Palatine migration project are people who emigrated between ~1709 and 1776.

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The Palatine migration is not defined by birth dates or the geography of the Palatinate. It's defined mainly by when the people migrated. The first migrants went to England in 1709, but most were born much earlier than 1709. And although the initial impetus for migration was in the Palatinate (which is not the same thing as the modern state of Rheinland-Pfalz), it was not limited to the Palatinate, and most German-speaking immigrants to North America in the period up to the American Revolutionary War were called "Palatines," regardless of their origins. (Conversely, it seems that in the mid-1700s one of my ancestral families was recorded in Germany as having emigrated to "Pennsylvania," but in fact had gone to New York. It seems that Germans in that area thought of all of America as "Pennsylvania," just as Americans thought of all Germans as "Palatines.")

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Similarly, some of the German pamphlets that attempted to recruit emigrants described "Carolina" as the destination of immigrant-friendly rich farmlands.  Yet, relatively few actually ended up in the Carolinas.

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Klein Niedesheim is documented in Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinniedesheim (minimal content, in English) and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinniedesheim (much more content, in German).

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The city closest to the villages part of my family came from is called Kirn.  I was there in 2016.   After talking to some of the locals in the villages, I found out that some of my family stayed behind and did not immigrate to the United States.  I have been trying to find living relatives in Germany as well to find more information.

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Christopher, I have been working on some Wikitree profiles of Palatines who came from nearby Idar-Oberstein and Birkenfeld.  You might try putting the family name into the Geogen website, which maps modern German surnames by population density.  I am frequently amazed at the close correlations between surname mapping and the known genealogy of immigrants.

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I recently documented 3 children of Henry Hallman d.1803 in Montgomery Co PA that moved to Lincoln Co NC in the 1760-1780 years.  This connection has been disputed  in the past but has now been proven.  There  are many German families that moved from PA to NC in the 1700's

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Would Alsatian settlers of the Louisiana German Coast be considered Palatine immigrants? Or would they not be, because this was not a British colony? For example:

Mathias Frederich I b. 13 Feb 1696 in Weilersheim, Bas Rhin, France

Agnes Keime b. 1703 Wingersheim, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France

Michael Bernhardt b. 1700 Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France

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Info only:  Per Barber & Howe 1841, in 1710 English Brid/Gen Robert Hunter arrived NY City with 3,000 Palatines who had in the previous year fled to England from Germany.  Queen Anne sent them to settle and many did in NY City, in the Livingston Manor up the Hudson River and others went to Penn.  The following year 1711 Eng/Col Nicholson assembled among others, 1000 Palatines in Albany NY to assault Quebec, Canada that August.  Nicholson only reached Lake George NY and there disbanded due to other reasons.  Presumably the Palatines returned to their homes.

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Yes, most of the Palatine Volunteers to Canada returned to their New York settlements.

http://www.threerivershms.com/namescanadian.htm

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Birth entry of their daughter Anna Maria, born 14 October 1718 in Kleinniedesheim: http://www.archion.de/p/cbba278811/

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I believe some of them became part of what was later known as The Schoharie Party, who migrated from that region of NYS to PA in 1723.

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Agree.  Barber & Howe 1841 also mention that originally the Palatines that moved north from NY City y settled in what is now the Schenectady NY area, its adjacent Mohawk valley heading west where there was already a German presence, and as you refer, to the Schoharie valley.  And they do mention that some later went south to Penn..

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The Migration of the Schoharie Germans to Pennsylvania and the History of Tulpehocken Township

http://www.pagenweb.org/~berks/oldberkssite/library/MigrationAndHistoryOfTulpehocken.html

Notes on The Meaning of Tulpehocken: Sources: Dick Creps, Judy Thayer, and Dave Becker

Tulpehocken...which means "Land where the turtle sang and wooed"...also the name of a Creek in Eastern Berks County. The Swatara, a tributary of the Susquehanna, led to the Tulpehocken Creek, which "fed" into Lancaster Co. Now, a distinct area of research within Berks and Lancaster Counties, and into an even larger area.

When the Palatinites went to New York, and got fed up with the British attitudes toward them, Weiser, and others began to look for other better places to settle. Apparently, Wm. Penn's folks had contacted them, offering land in the western part of Pennsylvania. Seemingly, the ulterior motive for the Penns was to provide themselves (in Eastern Penn) with a westerly buffer against the Indians. The PA authorities didn't throw down so many roadblocks against German Settlement, as did the British (who allowed only 10 acres per family and was not sufficient for adequate farming). The story of the Palatinates migration is mythical. You might like to order Earl W. Ibach's "Map".

Conrad Weiser (father and son) knew about the Tulpehocken area of Berks County through numerous contacts with the Indian peoples of that area, and trips made to the region. It is unknown how long the negotiations took, but the decision was finally made to make the move to the Tulpehocken area. A petition exists which names those original migrants. This migration took place in 1723, when 33 families left New York upon the invitation of Governor William Keith of Penn. And settled in the Tulpehocken area. The following petition to Governor Keith from these Palatinates who would eventually settle along the Tulpehocken Creek in Eastern Berks County.

(much clipped)

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Here is a freespace page I created to collate the Wikitree profiles attached to these settlers.  Not all of these names came from New York, but the majority did, especially on the early tax lists (1724-1727).

Answer 2

* '''Passenger List''': "U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s"<br/>Place: Pennsylvania; Year: 1710-1721; Page Number: 142<br/>{{Ancestry Record|7486|3062545}} (accessed 30 August 2022)<br/>Name: Anton Heilmann; Arrival Year: 1710-1721; Arrival Place: Pennsylvania; Primary Immigrant: Heilmann, Anton; Source Publication Code: 1033.7; Annotation: Date and port of arrival. Name of ship, place of origin, and citation to original record may also be provided. Spouse and children, mentioned prior to emigration, were assumed by indexers to have accompanied emigrant. Much genealogical and historical data is also provided.; Source Bibliography: BURGERT, ANNETTE KUNSELMAN. Palatine Origins of Some Pennsylvania Pioneers. Myerstown, PA: AKB Publications, 2000. 574p.; <br/>Household Members Relationship:<br/>Anton Heilmann<br/>Maria Salome Heilmann Wife<br/>Johannes Heilmann Child<br/>Heinrich Heilmann Child.