About The Palatine Project

The idea of putting the place of origin and other information along with the names of immigrants in published lists such as the Strassburger-Hinke lists of Germans to Pennsylvania is not new. Several people have proposed it in the past and some have attempted it, but without success. Charles Hall created a booklet with a similar purpose. The noted German immigration genealogist, Gary Zimmerman, wanted to do this before his passing. Picton Press has expressed a similar goal of identifying all the original 18th century German emigrants. However, there are legal, ethical, logistical and financial concerns about actually tackling such a project.

On the other hand, providing a database of immigrants with known origins for the public to use, through the Internet, is possible. It would allow those who find connections to Germany to identify those findings in one place. This would, in turn, help others avoid having to duplicate the same research over and over again. It would also provide important clues for those still looking for the origins of other immigrants.

The concept is to develop a database based on the Strassburger-Hinke book, Pennsylvania German Pioneers, but with added notations indicating the source(s) where information about the immigrant’s family and origin have been published (in print, or on-line). Not only does this database benefit people researching 18th century German immigrants whose place of origin has already been identified, but it is a tremendous source of leads for those still looking for such origins of other immigrants. Researchers can see at a glance which fellow immigrants have origins in Germany that are already known. Reviewing those sources can identify areas in which to focus a locality search, while also eliminating from consideration those sources that have proven not to reveal a specific immigrant’s origins.

The Palatine Project adds references (sources) to the names of immigrants whose origins are published in sources such as books by Hacker, Burgert, and Yoder. Over time, additional source books will be reviewed and annotations added. Further, any genealogist who has determined the origins of other immigrants can submit references to published books, articles, websites or other sources showing those origins. There are many professional and amateur genealogists who have made breakthroughs in researching such origins. As they are willing to share this information to a common database, it will become a tremendous source for all genealogists.

Anyone with connections to interested people or groups can inform them of this project, and encourage them to contribute. The project will remain a free database for all users. However, it is copyrighted. Please respect that legal right by not copying these pages to another web site. Hypertext links to specific ship’s pages are encouraged.

How did this come about?

Gary Horlacher conceived of this idea many years ago. He had done research on several Pennsylvania German families and identified the town of origin in Germany for some that had never been published in other sources. Sometimes, when looking for a particular ancestor, the identities of many others from the same ship were identified in the process. It seemed a shame that this information should be sitting in a file in his attic when there are others who might be looking for that information. For one client, he researched so many families that came with the ancestor, before finding the ancestral family, that he decided to take on the entire colony and worked on it for seven years, finally publishing the book Broad Bay Pioneers. Yet, what about all those Pennsylvania Germans in his files or in the files of several colleagues who had also been successful in finding new origins? Unless the material was published, a new generation or distant cousin was bound to spend much time and money in finding the origins that had already been established.

The idea continued to haunt Gary. It would be such a large undertaking to take on all of the Germans to Pennsylvania in a project similar to his Broad Bay project or Hank Jones’s monumental New York Palatine Families project. It could become a lifetime project. As Gary began putting together a case study for Pennsylvania, he kept thinking he should add his New England lists. Then as he looked at the Nova Scotia lists, he finally gave up and decided to include all the Palatine Germans.
With some help from Ancestry.com, and some student volunteers from Brigham Young University, Gary was able to launch the Palatine Project website. It became popular, generating thousands of hits each month, and significant email. Gary continued to work on the site for a couple of years, but after starting his doctoral studies, was not able to keep updating the lists, or respond to the email.

His professional colleague, Kory Meyerink with ProGenealogists offered to continue the Palatine Project and carry it forward from Gary’s beginning. He is now working to get the rest of the Pennsylvania lists online. They have also added a search engine so researchers can search the site for particular ancestor’s name.

There will continue to be no fee for this information as in the past. However, researchers who do not have the time or means to pursue the challenges of searching for the origins of a colonial German immigrant are invited to learn more about research services of the sponsoring company, ProGenealogists, Inc.

Any and all with an interest in Palatine German emigration to North America in the 18th century are encouraged to find ways to participate in this project!