Fellbach, Wûrttemberg, Germany Genealogy

Emigrants from Fellbach
It is estimated that about 2,000 persons emigrated from the village of Fellbach between 1735 and 1930. This is the estimation by Otto Conrad who created the history of emigration from Fellbach to America. 1,421 names he extracted from the local newspaper Fellbacher Tagblatt, however, he assumes that the real number of emigrants is much higher.

“The Fellbach records are so fragmentary for the 18th century, it is not possible to identify immigrants coming to America during that time period”, writes Clifford Neal Smith in a summary of the book by Otto Conrad. Smith further says “that in 1803-1805 one can link a number of Fellbacher emigrants with persons landing at Philadelphia, as reported in volume 2 Pennsylvania German Pioneers by Strassburger and Hinke. It is likely, that there were many Fellbacher immigrants before 1803, one strong clue being that in the period 1803-1830 several apparently unaccompanied women journeying to America, no doubt to join relatives settled in the country before 1803. If the names of such settlers had been available in the Fellbach records, many of them would be identifiable in Strassburg’s and Hinke’s works.”

Clifford Smith in his volume Emigrants from Fellbach Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, 1735-1930. (McNeal, AZ 1874) lists head of families with apparent relatives, destinations and years of emigration. His data covers mainly the 1800s. The book is availableat the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, call number US/CAN 973 W2smn n. 14

Another volume by Smith is ''Emigrants from the West-German Fuerstenberg Territories (Baden and the Plalatinate) to America and Central Europe 1712, 1737, 1787. ''Mr. Smith bases his research on an article published by Hermann Baier in 1937 and states that "Hermann Baier examined the records of emigration from the Fuerstenberg territories in southwestern Germany. He chose three years only: 1712, the year in which the great wave of Swabian emigration to Hungary began; 1737, the year in which there was a similar exodus of settlers to the Saderlach (Banat); and 1787, a typical year in which emigration was general and to many destinations. In each of the threee years migration to the New World also occurred. Considering the large number of persons listed for the three years reported upon herein, it seems clear that analysis of Fuerstenberg records for other years of the 18th century would yield a list of thousands of additional emigrants.

For the researcher of German-American lineage, settlement in Hungary and the Banat may seem of slight interest until reminded that the descendants of these central European German settlers have immigrated to the United States and Canada under the name Volksdeutsche in the 1950s and more recently. Perhaps even less relevant may seem the numerous entries herein pertaining to Fuerstenberg subjects whose destinations are not recorded in the extant manuscripts. But they, too, have a potential value to the German-American lineage researcher: several, for example, have been tentatively identified in Strassburger's and Hinke's lists of immigrants arriving in Philadelphia and many others--probably migrating only within Germany itself--will eventually be discovered to have been the parents and ancestors of Germans who did immigrate to the New Wworld, for it is an interesting fact that most migrants are descendants of previous migrants--stones once detached from the mother lode tend to keep on rolling, finding with difficulty permanent resting places; so likewise it is with people".

The book is part of the US/CAN collectionof the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, call number 973 W2smn no. 9