In 1831 several families from the southern part of the Pfalz in Germany left from the port of Havre, France for New York City. They were led by Jacob Petri, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and resident of the village of Thaleischweiler. Several families from the neighboring village of Herschberg were part of this group. (See the interactive map below.) Herschberg is the ancestral village of my wife's Hartenstein family. I began this project to trace the descendants of these families in the United States. As I began to research them, I realized that a vast number of families emigrated from this region beginning in the 1830s.
Many people from the group above settled in the northern part of Stark County, Ohio, near the village of Limaville. They founded a Protestant church, which was known by various names. The surviving church records have been transcribed in a booklet entitled The German Church of Atwater Township, Portage County, Ohio. These records frequently mentioned the ancestral German village of those members who died. This allowed me to identify people who came from Herschberg and surrounding villages. Several families settled in other parts of Stark and adjacent counties, where various records have been used to identify them.
My wife's ancestor, Michael Hardenstine, eventually settled in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, along with a few other Herschberg families (Brish, Hoffecker). Research in a Monroe County church pointed to the fact that the Hartensteins transferred their membership from a New York City Lutheran church. When I discovered the pastoral records of Rev. Frederick Geissenhainer at the New-York Historical Society, I realized they were a gold mine of information about German immigrants. Many of the families from Ohio and Pennsylvania were included in the New York records. From the time they arrived in the city until they migrated, their life events were recorded in the church books. Even more surprising was the discovery of dozens of other families from Herschberg in these records.
I eventually decided to transcribe the Protestant church records of Herschberg (1755 - 1872) and those of Rev. Geissenhainer (1827 - 1879). The purpose was to allow me and others to efficiently search for names within these records. The Herschberg church records are on my personal website in searchable PDF format. The Geissenhainer pastoral records are in a searchable database on the website of the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society (MAGS).
The region of interest in the present German state of Rheinland-Pfalz can be defined roughly by a triangle connecting the cities of Zweibrücken, Kaiserslautern, and Pirmasens. A large part of this region is known locally as the Sickinger Höhe (Sickinger Heights). (See the map of the region below.) Although Herschberg is not the center or largest village of the region, it is the central focus of my research. However, as ever more immigrant families are found during my research, the circle of interest continues to grow.
The Petri party were certainly not the first immigrants from the region. They are representative of many others who came before them and followed. Immigration from the Pfalz began as a trickle after the fall of Napoleon (1815) and became a tidal wave by mid-century. The decade of the 1830s saw the first surge of German newcomers through New York City. The church records bear this out.
I have identified a few families from the Sickinger Höhe region who arrived before 1830. Many others came after 1830 and joined the earlier immigrants in their settlements. As one example, in the early 1830s three Hartenstein siblings joined their fellow Herschberg friends in New York City, Monroe County, and Stark County. Twenty years later the children of another sibling joined the earlier settlers in Stark County.
As my circle of immigrants continued to grow, I found these people settling in many other locations within the north central states. In addition, many children of the earlier settlers in Pennsylvania and Ohio tended to migrate further west into Indiana, Illinois, and beyond. I frequently found many Herschberg families in these new settlements.
This project is never ending. I constantly find more families that I can identify from the various church books. The Herschberg book identified several dozen immigrant families, many of which I have not yet found in America.
My goal for this project is to identify immigrant ancestors from Germany and link them to several generations of descendants in America. I attempt to trace families through at least 1900 in the belief that it will make it easier for others to make family connections.
I invite you to join in the search. Please contact me if you have additional information or questions about any of these families. If you have other families who you believe should be part of this group, please let me know. I will gladly add them to the site and link to your own site, if you wish.
