Hi Daniel, Ben Franklin was alarmed about the large number of German immigrants but he had nothing to do with the requirement that people take an oath of allegiance. This was British law and they apparently didn't want a lot of illegal aliens running around their country. This was a fairly common procedure for most countries. British law also required someone who wanted to own land to become a citizen although the Penns managed to finesse that law a little bit. Jim Daniel E Weinhold <deweinhold@juno.com> wrote: ONE More? Mr. Ben Franklin became alarmed since so MANY Germany,s were arriving in the state of Penna. that he had said that he was afraid the state would become German. I do believe it was his idea to have Those males either sign on the 'dotted line THREE times or ( or an X) else entered as the German name "sounded" to the English clerk. Hence off time,s, one will find the immigrant,s name not only spelled incorrectly once, but by all Three Clerk,s as it happened to my Nicholas Weinhold, and thus entered into THE record as such, back in 1738, in the Port of Phila., PA. Ernest ==== PALANCAS Mailing List ==== To unsubscribe first check and see if you are getting list or digest mode then e-mail PALANCAS-L-request@rootsweb.com or PALANCAS-D-request@rootsweb.com with unsubscribe in message. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com