In a message dated 11/5/02 5:07:29 PM Eastern Standard Time, jmh2294@msn.com writes: > Some of my later Germans in Baltimore were named Francis and called Frank. Joanne- I have yet to see a German 'Francis' born in the 1760s or earlier--which this 'Francis' would have to have been--unless, of course, he was originally Frantz and the name was Americanized to Francis along the way--but why not just Frank then? "Francis" could have entered the picture after a family was in America long enough to have intermarried with non-Germans and named children after non-German family members but I don't find it at all in the early Germans who had just arrived in America (appearing on the ship lists). Joan