Originally Posted by
Ouistreham
No, not that simple.
This 1/4 from Alsace and Lorraine includes also some percent from Luxembourg, Belgium, Saarland, Palatinate, possibly the Netherlands (Limburg), but probably half of them were primarily French speakers, or bilingual. The majority were possibly culturally German but nationally French.
Anyway, in the year 1800 there were no borders, the whole area was part of Napoleonic France, and being under-populated (it hadn't yet recovered from the Thirty Years' War) Lorraine attracted at that crowds of immigrants from neighbouring provinces.
After Waterloo emigration went to America, especially to the Great Lakes area. Which is the reason why I have at least 40 K cousins in Wisconsin. And why you'll find some places along the Lake Michigan shores with weird names like "Luxembourg" or " Belgium"
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