robertmackayclan

This article is from the Marker family e-mail list at Rootsweb which I am a subscriber to. I thought it would be of interest to those of you who are researching ancestors from this region.

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Surnames: Marker
Classification: Immigration

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The following is a little history about that era of 1739. The Palatinate was
devastated by the War of the Grand Alliance (Spain, England, Sweden, Holland and
the Holy Roman Empire in opposition to King Louis XIV of France. King Louis
claimed and invaded the Prussian Palatinate (which has always been argued over
between France and Germany up to World War II a.k.a. Rhineland). The Palatinate
is bordered on France's northern border and the area is a mixture of French and
German, hence a possible tie between Fred and Peter Marcker.

After the war there was much starvation as in all wars. People were desperate to
leave and the English provided them a means to help populate their New World.
The Germans offered passage to "The City Upon the Hill" or "The New Jerusalem."
Many Europeans at the time believed that they were descendants of the lost ten
tribes of Israel. In exchange for passage the Germans gave up all their
possessions or left as indentured servants. Many Englishmen became very wealthy
from this activity.

Note: I wrote this a few years ago and failed to note my sources. Rick Marker

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Surnames: Marker
Classification: Immigration

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This is a weblink for more information.
http://www.city-net.com/~markd/roots/pl ... ate.htm

Copied from site.

The Palatine is a region in present-day Germany that felt the misery of armies
crossing and fighting for a very long time. At one time larger than the
present-day Rheinland-Pfalz state in Germany along the Rhine River, the exact
area of land included in the Palatinate is hard to define. Part of the reason is
that the English referred to many Germans as Palatines during the migrations in
the early 1700s to the English colonies in the New World. And not all of the
immigrants the English called Palatines were German; many were French from
nearby areas.

There were many reasons so many people left their homes for the New World to
live under English rule. Among these was some of the worst weather in the
regions' history, invading armies, and religious persecution not to mention the
incentives of owning land. One of the most confusing issues of the day was the
split of the church and the changes of the Elector, who ruled the region. One
would be Catholic, the next would be Protestant... and the people of whichever
was the "opposite" religion would be persecuted. They just couldn't win.

The English, meanwhile, wanted to populate their colonies to gain a stronger
hold on the wild country. A scheme was also cooked up to use the immigrants to
harvest trees along the Hudson River Valley to make pitch to seal warships.
Little came of this scheme but to bring the people to the area.

In time, the immigrants moved into Pennsylvania where religious tolerance was
practiced as well as New Jersey, upstate New York, and even the Carolinas.

This article is from the Marker family e-mail list at Rootsweb which I am a subscriber to. I thought it would be of interest to those of you who are researching ancestors from this region.

---

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Surnames: Marker
Classification: Immigration

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/xEz.2ACIB/190

Message Board Post:

The following is a little history about that era of 1739. The Palatinate was
devastated by the War of the Grand Alliance (Spain, England, Sweden, Holland and
the Holy Roman Empire in opposition to King Louis XIV of France. King Louis
claimed and invaded the Prussian Palatinate (which has always been argued over
between France and Germany up to World War II a.k.a. Rhineland). The Palatinate
is bordered on France's northern border and the area is a mixture of French and
German, hence a possible tie between Fred and Peter Marcker.

After the war there was much starvation as in all wars. People were desperate to
leave and the English provided them a means to help populate their New World.
The Germans offered passage to "The City Upon the Hill" or "The New Jerusalem."
Many Europeans at the time believed that they were descendants of the lost ten
tribes of Israel. In exchange for passage the Germans gave up all their
possessions or left as indentured servants. Many Englishmen became very wealthy
from this activity.

Note: I wrote this a few years ago and failed to note my sources. Rick Marker

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Surnames: Marker
Classification: Immigration

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/r ... B/190.2

Message Board Post:

From www.infoplease.com
History
Emperor Frederick I bestowed (1156) the title count palatine on his half-brother
Conrad, who was in possession of territories on both sides of the Rhine. More
extensive than the present Rhenish Palatinate, these territories also included
the northern part of modern Baden (but not the bishopric of Speyer and other
enclaves in the palatine lands W of the Rhine). When Conrad's line died out, the
Palatinate passed (1214) to the Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasty. The Wittelsbachs
enlarged their holdings along the Bohemian border, which were constituted as the
Upper Palatinate. In 1356 the German princes were granted the Golden Bull, which
gave them the right to vote in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. Their
territories were henceforth called the Electoral Palatinate (Ger. Kurpfalz).

The Rhenish Palatinate flourished in the 15th and 16th cent., and its capital,
Heidelberg, was a center of the German Renaissance and Reformation. The election
(1619) of Elector Frederick V (see Frederick the Winter King) as king of Bohemia
precipitated the Thirty Years War, in which the Palatinate was ravaged both by
the imperial forces under Tilly and by the Protestant army under Mansfeld. The
Upper Palatinate and the electoral vote were taken from Frederick and
transferred to Bavaria, but at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) a new vote was
created for Frederick's successor, Charles Louis, and the Rhenish lands,
devastated in the war, were returned to his control. The Upper Palatinate
remained a part of Bavaria. The region became involved in the War of the Grand
Alliance with Louis XIV, who ordered the destruction (1688–89) of the Rhenish
Palatinate. In 1720 the capital was transferred to Mannheim.

The palatine lands west of the Rhine were conquered by France in the French
Revolutionary Wars. In 1803, Maximilian ceded the palatine lands E of the Rhine
to Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau, but in 1806 he became king of a
much-enlarged Bavaria, and at the Congress of Vienna (1815) he recovered part of
the Rhenish Palatinate W of the Rhine, including Speyer and other enclaves.
Several districts, however, were awarded to Prussia, Hesse, and Oldenburg. The
Upper Palatinate was increased by the addition of Regensburg, which replaced
Amberg as capital. Both the Rhenish and the Upper Palatinate became integral
parts of Bavaria. After World War II the Rhenish Palatinate became (1946) a
district of the newly created state of Rhineland-Palatinate.