Peter, Wie gehts
All my German ancestors were born in Poland, not Germany.
From ~1750 to 1906, when my grandfather left, none were closer to Germany than Torun (Thorn).
Russia was in control of much of the area of current day Poland and Lithuania after the partitions of the 18th century. Nearly all of my ancestors were born in, what is today called "Dobrinland"
After an uprising, around 1860, was put down - Russia declared their sector of Poland was then part of Russian. Also that only the Russian language was to be used.
My Grandfather's, Gustav Krampitz 1881 Barany [Lipno], birth document as well as all his siblings documents were written in Russian.
When he and other siblings emigrated to the U.S., their manifests stated "country of origin: Russia". They'd say they were from "Russia" on documents, until the 'cold war' of the 1950's. Then they said "Poland".
Prior to the late 1800's, I find church documents were in Latin (when listed at a Catholic church - even though they were evangelical) or in Polish, when entered at an Evangelic church.
I have only one German document, a 1794 marriage in the Torun area, of my 3xGreat grandparents written in old German. That document gave me much grief as people able to translate German were at a loss trying to decipher many of the old word meanings.
East Europe areas that today are likely being acceptable as 'German' are likely East & West Prussia. There was a period that some called the Russian Partition "South Prussia", but that wasn't widely accepted.
I have not fully understood where the German speaking and Evangelic (Lutheran) people originated. I've read that Sweden invaded Poland in the 16th century, and that many 'Hollanders' were invited into Poland to tame their swampland. But I find little Genetic connection of the Eastern Europe Germans and long-time ancestry of Germans from areas in today's Germany.
I've read that the largest 'ethnic' group in today's United States, is German. But my research shows that most Germans came from Eastern Europe, specifically Poland! They have "Russia" as their country of origin on their Ellis Island manifests.
I certainly would like to learn more of how so many Germans came to populate the East Europe lands.
I should learn more of DNA genome matching, I only know that all the "Matches" the different companies with my genome tell me of - are just 'dead ends'
Bob Krampetz
Poland-Germany border, most interesting thing ever
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Originally Posted by Cniva
. Always some cool (& pretty) results.
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