"This volume is not intended to be a complete record of the families mentioned. The sole purpose is to provide the information on the emigrating generation from the German church records, with enough substantiating evidence from Pennsylvania records to attempt to prove the connection"--Introd. p. xvii.

The lists making up this remarkable work try to identify German emigrants in their homeland and in Pennsylvania. Thus they are cited with reference to manumission records, parish registers, passports, and other papers of German and Swiss provenance, and noted again, where possible, with reference to an equivalent range of Pennsylvania source materials, notably church records, wills, and tax lists. The materials antedating immigration often indicate causes, dates of emigration, the emigrant's occupation, his dates of birth and marriage, place of birth and residence, and names of family members, sometimes with lines of descent for several generations.

Each family group record in this impressive volume includes the name(s) of the immigrant(s), ship arrival data, European villages of origin (including earlier Swiss residences where given), data on each family from the European church registers, as well as information on many of the 628 families after their arrival in America. (690pp. illus. index. hardcover. Author, 1992.)

This is a collection of articles pertaining to the European origins of Pennsylvania German immigrants which originally appeared in the magazine "Pennsylvania Folklife," successor to "The Pennsylvania Dutchman." Virtually all the emigrants mentioned in this work are cited with reference to church, parish, and provincial records and other records located in the archival repositories of the old Palatinate and adjoining provinces in southwest Germany; and these emigrants are cited again, where possible, with reference to a corresponding range of Pennsylvania source materials, notably church records, wills, and tax lists. In addition, names of emigrants are collated with Strassburger and Hinke's celebrated "Pennsylvania German Pioneers," from which are drawn dates of arrival, names of ships, and other evidence of immigration.