Waelderhaus - "a house in the woods" Construction 1929-1931 Architect: Kaspar Albrecht
Yep, and I share the name. I’m even a plumber. LOL
We come from a long line of charcoal makers.
As a Sheboygan native, I enjoyed this.
Bratwurst und Rotkohl soul food.
Now how did he and other immigrants then survive and assimilated, but today's immigrants, with modern conveniences, travel, and gadgets up the wazoo, can't do the same?
Helping a friend with some World War I records for his family near Sheboygan, we came across a newspaper article about Mr. Kohler who was the local chairman for war bonds. He announced a quota for all households in the area and he promised to publish a list of anyone who failed to participate. He later followed up with his promise and published all the names of those who did not subscribe to the war bond drive. I guess being Anti Kaiser was good business.
German/Irish heritage here ... but full-blooded American.
And on top of all that ... Texan!
When they arrived they found that the English had taken most of the attractive and arable coastal lands so they moved inland. Many of them were Mennonites and Amish but most of them were yeomen farmers who pioneered homesteads and farmed typically without slaves. The German farmers were probably the most efficient and most successful farmers of that age. They maintained a bilingual culture in many places such as in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia which continued up until the first world war when the language as well as the German nation fell into disfavor. Of course the Amish still speak an interesting dialect of German to this day.
There is an interesting anecdote which appears in the Virginia Historical Society papers describing an incident in the Shenandoah Valley when a Confederate officer dispatched from Richmond stood on a wagon to harangue the crowd to secure volunteers for the Confederate Army. After he spoke a few words he was interrupted and told that he could speak English if he preferred.
My Mom was German. My Dad’s family was here from almost the beginning, 1607 Jamestown Colony.
Germanic stock here, too. At least as far back as we can go on that side of the family.
L
Ja wohl.
The Welsh and the Italians melted into the melting pot, too...my grandfather left Italy because of Mussolini my other grandfather left Wales because he thought America would be better...
Hannover and Wurttemberg here. Most of my ancestors came 1848-1879.
I bet most have more English and Scottish stock than they realize. I grew up thinking I was mainly German on my dad’s side (I have a German last name) and Irish on my mom’s side, which turned out to be only very partially true.
Once I really researched the whole family tree, I found that most of my lines go back to Englishmen who came here in the 1600s and the 1700s, some all the way back to Plymouth and Jamestown. Throw in a few Dutchmen, clear back to the original New Netherlands, and a few French Huguenots.
Turns out that most of the lines I thought were Irish were really Scots who transited through Northern Ireland.
The German lines came mostly in the early to mid 1800s. My dad’s family settled in Sac County, Iowa, where they broke the sod, built their own country church and school, and primarily spoke German for a long time. But eventually those families completely assimilated, marrying into families with all the usual English lines in them.
It’s all intensely interesting to study. I recommend it for anyone. It casts a whole new light on one’s understanding of American history. And the chances are, you will be quite surprised at what you find.
If you have some information about your most recent forebears, and you use the resources available today via the web, you will be amazed at the huge amount of information you can gather. At this point, we have almost all of our family lines figured out all the way back to the first-comers to this country. Only a few dead ends, a handful of which we’ll probably never figure out, for various reasons.
Great article here. Our family is mostly German / Scot and can trace our crossing to New York in 1708. Can trace further back, the paternal line, to 1440 in Marienthal, Zwickau, Sachsen, Germany.
http://www.us.kohler.com/us/Bathroom-Artist-Editions-Bathroom-Products/category/430703/429204.htm
50 percent German stock here (thanks to my dad), other 50 a mixture with part Cherokee blood. However A True USA Texan 100 percent Dad’s ancestors came thru Russia. Uncles lined up against their barn walls and shot by the Czars men when they refused to relinquish their horses. Dad’s parents were both German. They came to the country legally and departed the ship onto Ellis Island.