Pennyslvania Dutch/German

[Barb Bouldrey]

In our recent discussion on accents and then a question on the recipe forum asking Hans about Dutch foods, my brain started questioning the relationship of the Pennsylvania Dutch to the Netherlands.

Growing up in Ohio there were a lot of restaurants with the word "Dutchman" in their names. The decor, costumes of the servers, the things in the gift shops were all Amish-looking There are still those type restuarants in that area.

So, I googled "Pennsylvania Dutch" and discovered some very interesting facts. They really should be called "Pennsylvania Germans.

When were visited Germany I learned that when you say "I do not speak German" you say you do not speak Deustch....and I see where "Dutch" comes from.

Here is what I found:
The Pennsylvania Dutch (perhaps more strictly Pennsylvania Deitsch or Pennsylvanian German) are the descendants of German (not Dutch) immigrants who came to Pennsylvania prior to 1800. In this context, the word "Dutch" is probably a corruption of the German ethnonym Deutsch, which means "German".[1] Another theory is that the phrase "Pennsylvania Dutch" is a linguistic carry-over from an earlier, broader usage of the word "Dutch" to mean all people speaking a West Germanic language on the European mainland.

Pennsylvania Dutch were historically speakers of the Pennsylvania German language. They are a people of various religious affiliations, most of them Lutheran or Reformed, but many Anabaptists as well. They live primarily in southeastern Pennsylvania (but sometimes in adjacent states like Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina), with cultural traditions dating back to the German immigrations to America in the 17th and 18th centuries. Despite the name, the Germantown area remained almost exclusively Dutch (i. e. people from the Netherlands) until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Only then did German immigration from various parts of southwest Germany, Alsace and Switzerland gain momentum, and soon dominated the area."

Now I want to look up and discover why these people from a German background are connected to the Amish...or if they are connected.

Got my brain to working today. LOL!

Barb

[Gary Swartzlander]

I'm just guessing but I expect there won't be much connection except that their lifestyles resemble each other.

I will be interested (and might even join you) in what more you find out about this topic. My mothers maiden name is Longnecker and a variation of the name Longenecker are very dominant in the Pennsylvania Dutch community. Many of that family came from the Lancaster PA area.

My dad has done a lot of research on the history of the Swartzlander family and it's origin in Germany, but I know a lot less about my mothers side of the family. I do believe however that some of the family has been traced to the Netherlands. I'll have to check.

I'll be watching and adding any info that I can.

[Barb Bouldrey]

I researched "Amish" and found that they were a split off of the Mennonite church in Germany. They were known as Anabaptists, meaning "re-baptize" because they believed only adults should be baptized.

The Amish were started in Germany by a Mr. Amman, who thought the Mennonites (names after a Menno "Something") were straying from their strict lifestyle, only taking communion once a year and were not practicing shunning as they should.

The Amish migrated from Germany to Pennsylvania and eventually other states.

The Amish are listed as part of the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Pennsylvania Dutch(who all came from Germany..Duestch...)have several divisions, all of whom have their own set of rules and are independent of each other.

There are no longer any Amish in Germany. The last group merged back with the Mennonites in the last century.

Pennsylvania Dutch/German were listed in ship registries as Dutch, mistakenly, because they departed Europe from the Netherland ports. They were mistakenly listed as "Dutch" instead of German/Deustch.

How's that for your history lesson today?

Barb

[Jerry Frank]

Mennonites take their name from Menno Simons, a Catholic priest turned Protestant.

As I understand it, the Amish split from the Swiss Mennonites who bear distinction from the Mennonites of the central U.S. and Canada prairies, most of whom came originally from Holland by way of Prussia and then Russia.

Jerry

[Mike Schutz]

Mennonites take their name from Menno Simons, a Catholic priest turned Protestant.

As I understand it, the Amish split from the Swiss Mennonites who bear distinction from the Mennonites of the central U.S. and Canada prairies, most of whom came originally from Holland by way of Prussia and then Russia.

Jerry

My daughter graduated from Lancaster (PA) Mennonite High School, and my son attends there now. Of course, they are well versed in Mennonite/Anabaptist theology, history, and church life as a required part of classes and chapel services.

We are blessed with both Mennonite and Amish neighbors, and the 45 minute drive each day to Lancaster Mennonite High School takes us through Nickel Mines, the location of the tragic Amish school shooting this fall.

The folks we recognize for their distinctive dress and lifestyle as "Amish" are "Old Order Amish."

Grace and peace,
Mike

[Jim Franklin]

Since my heritage from my father's side is 1/8 Pennsylvania Dutch I will jump in here and thank Barbara for her research into the subject. I can confirm what she has posted from my studies in Cultural Geography. I first looked into this subject back in the 1940s in an encyclopedia and found that some of the PD were German speaking Swiss so because of the recent conflict with Germany I always said that that 1/8 was Swiss. Many of the early English speaking colonists mistook the term Duestch as "Dutch." because it seemed a little easier to pronounce.

[John Kennedy]

Related question: used to hear references to 'high Dutch' and 'low Dutch'. Since I never saw the terms in print Dutch could have been "Duestch". Any information?

[Jerry Frank]

I assume this is reference to high and low German (Deutsch, not Duetsch) dialects.

High German is the so called "intellectual" dialect or "Martin Luther" German because it was used to first translate the Bible from Latin. Low German, equivalent to Plattdeutsch, is a dialect of the northern lowlands. It is commonly spoken by Mennonites (who had roots in Holland, then Prussia and finally Russia as opposed to those from Switzerland) but also by other Germans in the north. There is some genuine Dutch (as opposed to Deutsch) influence in that dialect.

There are also other German dialects such as Schwabish spoken by people in the region of Stuttgart.

Jerry

[David Cash]

Just to keep things interesting, I have a Mennonite friend who once belonged to the "Beachy Amish." He said that that particular "Amish" group weren't really Amish but a Mennonite denomination.

Also, there are some Baptists who consider themselves "anabaptists" as well. Others make the rather grandiose claim that they come directly from the New Testament. I would guess that there are probably more that would recognize that historically, the Baptist movement in England has parallels with the Anabaptist movement on the European continent.

In a way, the Mennonite movement is similar to the Methodist/holiness movement in which there are numerous denominations within the broader movement and theologies running from very liberal to very conservative.

David Cash

[John Kennedy]

Whether they realize it or not, all Baptists are anabaptist. If my memory serves me correctly, the prefix ana- means 'again'. They were, and are, 'rebaptizers' since they believe in believer's baptism only, and do not practice or recognize infant baptism. So if you were baptized as an infant and sought to join a Baptist, Mennonite, etc. church, they would probably insist that you be re=baptized.
The claim that the Baptists have origins in the New Testament is patently absurb nonsense; nonsene of a grade that could it be transformed into solid matter, sprinkled on the lawn, and given plenty of sunshine and water, would make the grass grow as lushly as the grass Erma Bombeck observed growing over the septic tank.

[Joel Merrill]

In our recent discussion on accents and then a question on the recipe forum asking Hans about Dutch foods, my brain started questioning the relationship of the Pennsylvania Dutch to the Netherlands.

Growing up in Ohio there were a lot of restaurants with the word "Dutchman" in their names. The decor, costumes of the servers, the things in the gift shops were all Amish-looking There are still those type restuarants in that area.

So, I googled "Pennsylvania Dutch" and discovered some very interesting facts. They really should be called "Pennsylvania Germans.

When were visited Germany I learned that when you say "I do not speak German" you say you do not speak Deustch....and I see where "Dutch" comes from.

Here is what I found:
The Pennsylvania Dutch (perhaps more strictly Pennsylvania Deitsch or Pennsylvanian German) are the descendants of German (not Dutch) immigrants who came to Pennsylvania prior to 1800. In this context, the word "Dutch" is probably a corruption of the German ethnonym Deutsch, which means "German".[1] Another theory is that the phrase "Pennsylvania Dutch" is a linguistic carry-over from an earlier, broader usage of the word "Dutch" to mean all people speaking a West Germanic language on the European mainland.

Pennsylvania Dutch were historically speakers of the Pennsylvania German language. They are a people of various religious affiliations, most of them Lutheran or Reformed, but many Anabaptists as well. They live primarily in southeastern Pennsylvania (but sometimes in adjacent states like Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina), with cultural traditions dating back to the German immigrations to America in the 17th and 18th centuries. Despite the name, the Germantown area remained almost exclusively Dutch (i. e. people from the Netherlands) until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Only then did German immigration from various parts of southwest Germany, Alsace and Switzerland gain momentum, and soon dominated the area."

Now I want to look up and discover why these people from a German background are connected to the Amish...or if they are connected.

Got my brain to working today. LOL!

Barb

My grandfather, Melvern Dennis Looker 1877-1967, on my mom's side was Pennsylvania Dutch. Mom jokes and says when she got married, she quit looking :basic01.

My great grandfather was Skyles Woodburn Looker. He and two of his brothers, Charles and James, were in the Civil War and Skyles became a Lieutenant. My great great grandfather was Edmond Burke Looker 1811-1896. He did many things in his life and one of them was to help lay the foundation for the Washington Monument. We are very sure but haven't been able to prove it yet, but we think his father was James Looker and he helped build the stone fort that is now the base for the Statue of Liberty. My second cousin is a professional genealogist. She could tell you more about it. I'm just speaking from memory.

The Lookers were always very patriotic and very good Christians. I'm pretty sure they were Anabaptists back then. My grandfather attended what they called a "Dunkard Church" which I think was some kind of Baptist Church in his younger years. Later he became a Methodist and was very active in the church until old age. He lived with us the last few years of his life and I remember him well.

The Looker family was good about keeping diaries and family records. One of my uncles wrote a very good book about the life of my grandfather. I wrote the last chapter.

Joel

[Jerry Frank]

For a brief detailed explanation of the Beachy Amish, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beachy_Amish


Jerry

[David Cash]

Whether they realize it or not, all Baptists are anabaptist. If my memory serves me correctly, the prefix ana- means 'again'. They were, and are, 'rebaptizers' since they believe in believer's baptism only, and do not practice or recognize infant baptism. So if you were baptized as an infant and sought to join a Baptist, Mennonite, etc. church, they would probably insist that you be re=baptized.
The claim that the Baptists have origins in the New Testament is patently absurb nonsense; nonsene of a grade that could it be transformed into solid matter, sprinkled on the lawn, and given plenty of sunshine and water, would make the grass grow as lushly as the grass Erma Bombeck observed growing over the septic tank.

Yes, all Baptists are rebaptizers, but as I understand it at least some historians would differentiate between their movement and the Reformation era Anabaptist groups from the European continent that formed several denominations such as Mennonite, Dunkards, and maybe some of the groups using the word "Brethren."

I don't know if very many Baptists actually consider themselves direct descendants of the New Testament church or not. I did hear such talk among the ones I used to hang out with. Whether we think their claim is valid or not, the idea of being totally Biblical is an aspiration that I respect. (Even while maintaining that there is no contemporary denomination that is totally Biblical.)

Thanks for the thoughts.

David Cash

[John Kennedy]

The primary hallmark of all the groups you cited, including those called Baptists, is the insistence on 'believers baptism only' generally by immersion. I have heard that 'believers baptism only' was considered by a few to be more essential than the mode (immersion), but I suspect the 'deepwater Baptists I grew up with in the South would quickly repudiate that point of view.

I think one of the distinctions between the Anabaptist groups you cited and Baptists would be the former's resistance to control by the state and their adherence to pacificism.

I would agree that the idea of being totally Biblical is an aspiration to be respected. I am also aware that it would be a practical impossibility to get unanimous agreement about what that actually means. And the ones who are most strident about their being totally biblical are frequently in sharp disagreement with one another about how that works out.

Group A claims, "We don't have doctrines - we just teach the Bible." Group B makes the same claim. Apparently, however, they can't get their Bibles to agree with each other.

I first ran into the claim of some Baptists that they are the direct descendants of the New Testament church nearly 50 years ago when I was serving a short-term interim pastorate in a little town in south Texas. The town had a civic club that had the rule that only one member of each profession could belong (one lawyer, one doctor, one banker, etc.). The clergy was represented by a Catholic priest and a Methodist minister.

The newly arrived pastor of the First Baptist Church (the biggest in town - this is Texas after all) decided to apply for membership. When informed of the rule he stated that the Baptists were neither Protestant or Catholic, that they predated both since they had been founded by John the Baptist.
Just goes to show that you don't have to be Jewish to have 'chutzpah' and don't have to know anything about church history if you pastor the biggest church in town.

[Mark Bolerjack]

I will be interested (and might even join you) in what more you find out about this topic. My mothers maiden name is Longnecker and a variation of the name Longenecker are very dominant in the Pennsylvania Dutch community. Many of that family came from the Lancaster PA area.

Longneckers run in our family as well. My mother's first cousin is Bill Longnecker. I'm not sure about being Penn Dutch, tho. Her family roots go back to east Texas.

[Scott Rambo]

One local (Berks County, PA) university offers a minor in Pennsylvania German studies. Seems these stubborn (a self-confessed trait) folk are finally assimilating and are in danger of dissapearing altogether. (PA Dutch, not Amish).

You may visit them at: http://http://www.kutztown.edu/community/pgchc/index1.htm

Information heres is about the course of study, not the people. Also, you could visit the their affiliates webs page.

http://http://www.kutztown.edu/community/pgchc/affiliates.htm