Nelda, I don't know about the literacy in 18th century Germany, but Sweden had a very high literacy rate at that time: "Generally speaking, Protestant areas had higher literacy rates than Catholic areas. The most extreme example is the case of Sweden, where, with the cajoling of the Lutheran Church, almost everyone was literate by the mid-18th Century." Spoken and Written Discourse: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective, By Khosrow JahandarÃe, Praeger, 1999 ----- Original Message ----- From: Nelda Percival Date: Sunday, April 29, 2012 4:46 pm Subject: [AMREV-HESSIANS] Reading and Writing To: [email protected] > > HiWhat makes you think MOST could read and write? Not to get > into an argurement here, but in the 1700s education was not a > paid for item. No ones government put the common person though > any type of schooling. Look at the records we do find, for any > of our ancestors from that time period how many signed with an X . > > Yes, there are some diaries and such but that percentage, if you > look at it, is no wheres near most... > > I'd be happy to find out that the Hessians connected to my > families could read and write. > > Nelda > > > > Nelda L. Percival, Administrator of Y-DNA surname projects > Gilpin, Cupp, Bonstein > and Gillock > My Genealogy - > http://freepages.folklore.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bonsteinandgilpin/index.htm > GeneticGenealogy - http://www.geneticsand.us > Blog - http://aircastles-lets-talk.blogspot.com/ > > GilpinGenetics: http://www.gilpingenetics.us/ > Web Mistress for LCRG - http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~molcgdrg > > > > > > PLEASE CHECK ALL OF YOUR SUBJECTS! > ~~~~~~~~~ > FOUNDER: John H. Merz 1924-2006 Created 1998 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~ > http://freepages.military.rootsweb.com/~bonsteinandgilpin > ~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ADMINISTRATOR [email protected] > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AMREV- > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >