Maryland Cultural Groups

Maryland has had a diverse ethnically since it's founding. Political and religious refugees have formed a large part of Maryland's immigration.

Introduction
It is important to learn the ethnic origin and racial history of your ancestors. The historical background can help you identify where your ancestors lived and when they lived there, where they migrated, and types of records they might be listed in. Often neighborhoods published their own newspapers, had their own cemeteries, businesses and churches.

Search for members of minority groups in the same records you would search for anyone else. Then search for additional records of a particular minority. Families often chose to live in neighborhoods where others of their ethnic and racial origins lived.

Baltimore Maryland is a major port, with passenger list for the years 1820-1921;

Maryland has had a diverse ethnically since it's founding. Political and religious refugees have formed a large part of Maryland's immigration.

Some of the ethnic groups in Maryland include: American Indians, African American, Asian, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, Germans, Hispanic, Irish, Italians, Japanese, Jewish, Latin Americans, Lithuanians, Pacific Islanders, Polish, Scandinavians, Scottish, Ukrainians, Hispanic and Welsh.

Calendar of Immigration
1730-1740: Germans originally from Rhineland settled in farm lands of western Maryland

1740's: English, Scottish and Scotch-Irish immigrants began settling in the western Maryland

Dutch, Swedish, Huguenot and Acadian (1755) refugee families settled in the colony

1830-1840: immigration of many Germans and Irish to Maryland

1870-1880: Many German Immigrants settled in Maryland

Post 1880: Poles, Bohemians, Lithuanians, Greeks, Jews (from Germany, Poland and Russian immigrants), Czech, Italians, and Irish

See also: Maryland Emigration-Immigration

Maryland History

American Indian
Several American Indian tribes resided in Maryland for centuries. Information about them can be found at Indians of Maryland.

African-Americans

 * See African American Resources for Maryland

Czeck
the first Czeck was Augustine Hermann (mapmaker)who settled in Cecil Country in 1640.

English
Earliest settlers

French
1755 brought French from Nova Scotia(Acadians).

German
In 1684 a small group of Labadist, from Friesland came to Maryland. in 1732 Lord Baltimore and Charles Calvert offered two hundred acres in fee to Germans to settle between Patapsco and Susquehanna. Many Germans from Pennsylvania settled in Frederick and Washington counties.

Italian
Italians began settling in the eighteenth century.

Polish
The Poles started to settle in Maryland during the Civil War.

Websites

 * "African American Genealogy," in Genealogical Sources in Periodicals at The Maryland State Archives.
 * http://www.mdhs.org/