der@redrose.net wrote: > > I have been reading about various emigrants who first went to the > "Carolina" colony in the 1700s and then came to Lebanon County, or vice > versa. For example, some of the BOLLINGER emigrants in Annette K. > Burgert's book are listed as leaving Zweibrucken and going to "Carolina." > Could someone put some boundaries on that colony for me, given the time > period - 1700s? There may be some connection with the ancestors I am > researching. I know this was one of the 13 original colonies, if I recall > my history, but would like to know more about who started it, and the > particular emigrants who might be attracted to this colony and why the > "back and forth" between PA and North Carolina. What states does the > North Carolina colony encompass today? Thank you. There are other emigrant > ancestors of my husband's who were said to have come to Carolina first, > and then came to PA. If they followed Hank Jones' maxim, "They came > together, they stayed together" it would seem these emigrant families had > some "connection." Donna - they did. I will probably get some arguments about this but I think we can say the area referrred to is what is now roughly the Western third of North Carolina. I think the Moravians started it; some of them came to what is now Forsythe County starting in the early 1750s and founded Old Salem (now part of the city of Winston-Salem). Other Pa Germans who were not necessarily Moravians settled in the surrounding area, and for some reason not clear to me, a lot settled in what is now Rowan county (between Winston-Salem and Charlotte if you look at a map). Why? Well, I think they were already starting to run out of desirable land in some parts of PaDutch country - they had so many children, it was undesirable to subdivide farms too many times. Then I guess there was 'go west, young man', even then. Adventure. Some thought the climate was better. In the case of the Moravians there seems to have been some religious motivation - to convert the Indians. Why North Carolina as opposed to Virginia, for instance? Well in fact some did go to Virginia, but that was already more heavily settled - there was more Lebensraum (sorry, but there really is no English equivalent) in North Carolina. And once some relatives were here, sure there was back-and-forth, they kept track of each other. If you get into this I warn you, the German names often got even more distorted, sometimes out of recognition, in North Carolina than they did in Pennsylvania. A number of names that one thinks of as Southern, North Carolina Names, are of Pa German origin. Haines, of Haines Hosiery, is said to have started as Heinz, and I have heard that Reynolds, of R.J. Reynolds tobacco company (Winston-Salem) was originally Reinhold or something like that. There are books on this subject; a good one that tells about the life of an individual as opposed to a general movement, is Adelaide L. Fries, "The Road to Salem", University of North Carolina Press, 1972. It is based on the writings of a young Moravain woman who made this trip and kept diaries all her life. Although many of my own ancestors were Moravian, they stayed in Lancaster; none of them seem to have had the foresight to simplify my life by moving to North Carolina (I am the first of my family to live here as far as I know). If you want to know more I can probably find you more sources. Jan