Some of the Geigers who left Germany or Switzerland in the first half of the 18th century were very-definitely "Swiss Mennonites"--Anabaptists who were called that whether or not their families had recently lived in Switzerland ("recently" meaning a century or two). The Geigers who were in Amish or Mennonite congregations in PA by ~1750 were people who had very good reason to flee religious persecution. If a Swiss resident were slow to get a child baptized, or if s/he skipped a communion service at the local parish church, the village Morals Committee would call the nonconformist to court and impose a fine. This could be a serious business for a poor peasant, who was generally a serf and did not have the money to pay the fine. If they persisted in that sort of thing, they were suspected of being Anabaptists. The official penalty for that was torture and/or drowning--no trial was required. It wasn't applied all that frequently, but it could--and did--happen. One alternative was to round them up and banish/deport them to the British colonies. The Bernese government tried that in 1710 with a batch of 56 Anabaptists, but other governments--especially the Dutch--were so horrified by that awful punishment that the prisoners were released, and some even returned to Bern. Bern attempted expulsion and deportation again in 1730 and 1733, but got so much political flak that the! y didn't go through with it. In the meantime, something odd had happened. Letters from Mennonites in PA had started circulating, and other members of the faith decided that they really WANTED to go there! Deportation was no longer a dreadful penalty, just maybe a way to save on the cost of the passage. ("Oh, no...PLEASE don't throw me into that brier patch!" said Br'er Rabbit.) Governmental response: "OK, we won't use deportation as a deterrent/penalty anymore. If those heretics WANT to go there, we just won't LET them go--or else will make it too expensive for them to get a permit." They went anyway, sometimes by sneaking off in the middle of the night, but sometimes at the head of a parade with the whole village clapping about their illegal emigration and wishing them every success. Which of the many Geiger immigrants of the 18th-c. were Anabaptists (Mennonite, Amish or German Baptist Brethren) and had very good reasons for exiting German-speaking territories, even if illegally? I don't know. But if their arrival is recorded in NY, PA, MD, VA or NC, they're communicants of an Anabaptist congregation on this side of the water, and their exit is NOT recorded in, e.g., Hacker or Faust & Brumbaugh, there's a pretty good chance they they skipped out for reasons of religious freedom. Harriet Imrey himrey@ntelos.net