(I thought I had saved more postings, but here are misc answers I've saved regarding the Emigrant question: . -- I think the Irish-Iowa or Iowa list were the lists that supplied many of the answers in the last 2-3 months.) (Note from Ellen: One Irish gg grandparents spent 4 years in Canada before coming to Dubuque. Another set lived a short while in NY first. They came before trains were an option, (plus with what stories my mom told) so I believe a combination of boat via Great Lakes and wagon is how they hit Iowa. The Erie Canal of New York State was built in 1825. It started in the Albany, NY area and went to Buffalo and Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. At the time it paralleled the Mohawk River to present day Utica, NY, but most of the Mohawk was unnavigable back then. The Erie Canal was a very narrow body of water perhaps 25 feet wide and 10 feet deep in which special canal boats were pulled along mile by mile by horse and mule. In this period of time (before railroads), I would think most passengers let off in New York City, travelled up the Hudson to Albany by boat (certainly not the same one that made the Atlantic Crossing), then travelled by canal boat west. There were roads along the Hudson, so travel by land was also feasible. The Erie Canal was only used for a few decades - replaced by railroad, and today the Mohawk River has been canalized and forms the Mohawk River - Barge Canal System that takes barges and boats to the Great Lakes. Two ways for German speaking peoples to emigrate. (from Ellen: my NIPP and VOGEL families came through Port of New Orleans and up the Mississippi River.) Finding Passenger Lists at the Port of New Orleans, Louisiana http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/neworleans.html 1. in the 1700's shipping companies found it profitable to carry large numbers of passengers across the Atlantic. The ships usually sailed from Rotterdam, then to an English port to clear customs/immigration and then to the U.S.--usually Philadelphia since Pennsylvania had a large German speaking community. It was so profitable that the shipping companies hired Germans who had already lived in the new world to return to Germany and recruit, under commission, more Germans. The drill was to get as many passengers as possible so these recruiters, known as "Neulaender" or new worlders, were given fancy new clothes to wear and pocket watches etc to impress the peasants. They stretched the truth to paint a picture of paradise in the British North American colonies. They even organized groups to travel together down the Rhine River to Rotterdam. A potential emigrant could go now and pay later. He/she paid later with indentured servitude of 6 or 7 years after arrival. When your ship arrived in Philadelphia, you had to stay on the ship or in custody on land until a local employer paid your passage and thereby bought your indentures. Since the immigrant was "redeemed" off the ship, these immigrants were called "redemptioners". The system worked but was full of abuses and German speaking colonists eventually formed societies to pressue legislatures to regulate the trade. The typical abuses were the lies told by the Neulaender, extra charges on the ship during the voyage, pilferage of the passengers' belongings during the voyage, and unscrupulous holders of the indentures. Many passengers started out the voyage thinking they had enough money to pay for the trip and more but arrived in the American colonies in debt and having to sell a child's or their own future labor to get off the ship. All of this is copiously documented and open to your own research. Did Swiss Germans come to the U.S. as redemptioners in large numbers? I don't know. Certainly the largest group to come this way were the Palatines. My wife has an ancestor who came in 1772 as a redemptioner from Pommerania on the Baltic. Kudos to Paul Rand for posting this review of an important period in the history of Swiss emigration. 2. In the late 1600's many Swiss, Huguenots, Waldensians etc. were invited to move to soutwestern Germany to farm vacant lands and manage aristocratic estates. The area and its population had been devastated by war, famine and pestilence. My wife has several lines of ancesters who moved to the small town of Gondelsheim, Baden-Wuerttemburg, Germany from Bern Canton in about 1690. They were invited by the von Mentzingen family who needed farmers to work the land and therefore pay taxes. They also had some of their own farms that needed managers/stewards. I've heard that you needed only to show up, in some cases, and have a warm body to get a house and the right to work some land. This was rather attractive to the second, third and fourth sons who did not inherit in Bern. The journey was only 50 to 200 miles and the language change was one German dialect to another so it was not such a big deal to go. -----Original Message----- From: Amy Davidson [mailto:amylwest@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 10:28 AM To: IADUBUQU-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Dub'que] Emigrants to Dubuque Co., circa 1855 Lisa, My family arrived in the Dyersville area at almost the same time from England. I have all the same questions you do, and would love to hear if anyone has any ideas. Have you tried posting the same question to the "Roots" list? With so many subscribers to that list, someone might have some ideas. Amy ==== IADUBUQU Mailing List ==== NO Virus warnings, seasonal greetings or private 'chit-chat' on this list, okay! 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