German is America's largest ancestry group, with 49 million people claiming part or full German heritage. A slow but steady stream of Germans immigrated to the U.S. starting in the 1680s, coming to represent 9% of the total US population around the close of the 18th century. When the first American census was taken in 1790, Pennsylvania's German population was put at 225,000 which amounts to a third of the state's entire population.*
Today there is a German belt extending from eastern Pennsylvania to Oregon. (See map.) A majority of counties in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas are predominantly German, and they make up a plurality of Ohio and Indiana counties.
If you have German ancestry, you will not want to miss this great presentation by award-winning James Beidler, who will be presenting to the Main Line Genealogy Club this Thursday (3/13) at 1 pm at the Easttown Library in Berwyn.
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James M. Beidler writes “Roots & Branches,” an award-winning weekly newspaper column on genealogy that is the only syndicated feature on that topic in Pennsylvania. He is also a columnist for German Life magazine and is editor of Der Kurier, the quarterly journal of the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society. He is an instructor for the online Family Tree University.
Currently working on a German genealogy guide slated for publication in 2014, he was President of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors from 2010 to 2012, and is the former Executive Director for the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. He served as national co-chairman for the 2008 Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Philadelphia.
Find out what's happening in Tredyffrin-Easttownfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Beidler is also frequent contributor to other periodicals ranging from scholarly journals such as The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine to popular-interest magazines such as Ancestry and Family Tree Magazine. He also wrote the chapter on genealogy for Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth, published jointly by the Penn State Press and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. As a lecturer, he was a part of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council’s acclaimed Commonwealth Speakers program from 2002 to 2009, and has been a presenter at numerous conferences.
* www.businessinsider.com/german-american-history-2013-10#ixzz2vZbvjarc
