My opinion is that it is somewhat risky to name certain counties as being "Pennsylvania Dutch" -- that is, risking slighting people of "Pennsylvania Dutch" heritage who were in counties other than those cited. I suspect the Pennsylvania Deutsch (German/Swiss/Huguenot) have an influence in just about every county of the state and also those counties in Maryland which border on the Mason-Dixon line. My Houtz, Garbrick, Shuey, Ziegler, Shower(s)/Schauer, Etters, Loesch, Holderman, Shearer/Scherer, and Waltenberger lines were all of "Pennsylvania Dutch" ancestry, settling in Centre County. Many of them spoke German as indicated by some of the census records. This would have been "German" of the Pennsylvania Deutsch dialect, of course. It is my guess that the Pennsylvania Dutch have left their imprint just about everywhere in the state -- although, admittedly, there are some counties that are more Pennsylvania Dutch than others. Fred Houts in MN

Hi all, Several people have explained to me, Pennsylvania Dutch, more of Germanic group and others not so much immigrants from the Netherlands. Since mine came from Netherlands and settled in Centre, would there have been a Dutch population at that time? Thank you, Mark -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 7:53 AM Subject: [PACENTRE] Pennsylvania Dutch counties My opinion is that it is somewhat risky to name certain counties as being "Pennsylvania Dutch" -- that is, risking slighting people of "Pennsylvania Dutch" heritage who were in counties other than those cited. I suspect the Pennsylvania Deutsch (German/Swiss/Huguenot) have an influence in just about every county of the state and also those counties in Maryland which border on the Mason-Dixon line. My Houtz, Garbrick, Shuey, Ziegler, Shower(s)/Schauer, Etters, Loesch, Holderman, Shearer/Scherer, and Waltenberger lines were all of "Pennsylvania Dutch" ancestry, settling in Centre County. Many of them spoke German as indicated by some of the census records. This would have been "German" of the Pennsylvania Deutsch dialect, of course. It is my guess that the Pennsylvania Dutch have left their imprint just about everywhere in the state -- although, admittedly, there are some counties that are more Pennsylvania Dutch than others. Fred Houts in MN ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.