Our ancestors were GERMAN SPEAKING SETTLERS in the former south-east European areas. Some of these referred to themselves as Schwowe or Schwobe because they sailed (floated) down the Danube from Ulm in the former area known as (the one time kingdom as well as duchy) Schwaben. The term (plural) Schwowe or Schwobe (singul. Schwob) was in use long before modern High German evolved and the term became Schwabe. The settlers were from different German speaking central European areas. There was no country known as Germany at the time. Many came from Alsace and Lorraine, the present day Saarland and from all areas in present day Germany, but mostly from the south and central regions. A lot of the German speaking people from Alsace and Lorraine originated from Switzerland. ( See history of Alsace, 30 years war) Some towns and cities in south eastern Europe had a dialect similar to Bavarian. Ruma was one of them. My husband was from there. They did not consider themselves as Schwowe, but as Rumaer ‘Deitsche’ (Deutsche). After arriving in Toronto they became members of the Donau Schwaben Club. There were other towns who did not consider themselves as Schwowe, like the Siebenbürger Sachsen and the Gottscheer. They spoke a different dialect as well. ‘When Hitler started the war he considered everyone with even a distant German grandmother to be German and promptly drafted all their adult male descendants to his army’... My mother’s words. Eventually we became known as Donauschwaben (Donauschwowe), Volksdeutsche, Flüchtline, Banater (Banaterfrass =rubbish) and in some areas ‘Zuagroaste’ (Zugereiste) = those who traveled here. The last was a term to describe anyone in Austria and Bavaria who was not a ‘local’. Anne D.