Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Counting Kindred of Christian Deppen and History of Christian Ruchty and Other Collateral Families, Also the Complete Genealogical Family Register of Christian and Veronica (Ruchty) Deppen's Family: Including the Carpenter, Yeakley and Heckendorn Lines, Surnames of Barbara, Anna and Veronica, Daughters of Christian Deppen, With Biographies of All Their Descendants From the Earliest Records Available
The designation Pennsylvania Dutch applies to residents of certain Pennsylvania communities, who are largely of German and Swiss origin. The confusion arises from the fact that the English language today restricts Dutch to the inhabitants of Holland, while the Germans in their own lan guage, apply the word Deutsch to themselves, according to Girard in the Phila. Inquirer.
The ancestors of these so-called Pennsylvania Dutch came from the Rhine Palatinate, some ma have gone to Holland during the persecutions - but many came directly ere. About the year 1700 settlers began to penetrate the counties of Montgomery, Lancaster and Bucks. Prior to this period the Germans were not so far removed from Germantown and Philadelphia. While there ma be an admixture of Netherland's blood in the stock of Penn sylvania, the c iei, predominating strain and characteristic of the people who settled in Lancaster county as it was originally, is Germanic. The next settlements were across the Sus uehanna, where this class built up York and Cumberland counties. Still (later they spread into Northampton and Northumberland, northward and westward into Bedford and Allegheny. Os car Kuhns in a book entitled The German and Swiss Settlements in Penn sylvania estimates that four or five million persons in the United States are descended, with a good admixture, from the early German settlers of Penn sylvania. Many of our Palatinate ancestors were Swiss, prior to their com ing to America. There - the German language is spoken in sixteen Cantons, French in five, and Italian in only one. German is the language o?'iciall used. Its various people have lived near neighbors for centuries yet each race holds loyal to its early ton ue. German is the language of Germany, 60% of the people of Austria apo e it, and 717: of Switz., Dutch is spoken in Holland and Flemish in Belgium. These were all classed as foreigners. One class of citizens of Pennsylvania, which have almost entirely lost their iden tity are the French. They came over in driblets - while the Irish, English, Welsh and Germans came over in armies. Not only did the French colonizers quickly become a small minority, but in scores of instances they saw their very names twisted into German or English equivalents, or near-ems. One writer says - French Huguenot. German and Dutch Pietist. Mennonite and Amish and Schwenkfeldians driven from their European homes by religious bigotry - the followers of Calvin and the cohorts of Wesley all found a safe refuge in Pennsylvania. New Englanders had burned and whipped Quakers, but when Penn founded Pennsylvania, all sects were welcomed. Blending here of all those groups, with their diversified abilities and accomplishments is what put Penn's Colony in front as an industrial state. The result was more settlers came to Penna. In the first 50 years than had gone to Va N. Y., or Mass., together in 100 years.
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