Reply #17: It is possible he was Swiss and German. [View All]

One thing I like to point out is that modern nationalities is a product of the French Revolution, and people did not call themselves by their Nationality till that time. Prior to the 1800s people called themselves by the language their spoke. Thus a citizen of Switzerland who spoke German and immigrated to America in the 1700s would tend to call himself by his LANGUAGE not his nationality i.e. he would call himself “German” for that was his native tongue not “Swiss” for “Swiss” was not a language.

Thus your ancestor calling himself “German” was just following the convention of his time period. Something we have to watch when reading history, people’s view of themselves have changed, In the “dark ages” the tend was to your religion, in the Middle Ages this continued. After the 30 year war language (and religion) became how people ID themselves, it is only with the French Revolution that Nationality came to play in how people called themselves (Even in America as late as the revolution people called themselves, Irish, Scots, English and German based on their language (With the Irish, Scots and Welsh differing themselves from the English based on where their family came from NOT on being a different nationality).

German was the second most common language spoken in America at the time of the Revolution, In Pennsylvania “Germans’ out numbered English speakers, but these all called themselves “German” based on their language NOT that their were from what we now call “Germany”.