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.

Cultural Groups
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

African-Americans

 * See African American Resources for Maryland

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.

Indigenous Peoples

 * See Indigenous Peoples of Maryland

Italian
Italians began settling in the eighteenth century.

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

General
See also United States Cultural Groups for additional resources.

Other records and histories of ethnic, racial, and religious groups in Maryland are listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:


 * MARYLAND - MINORITIES


 * MARYLAND, [COUNTY] - MINORITIES


 * MARYLAND, [COUNTY], [TOWN] - MINORITIES

You will also find records in the Subject Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:


 * AFRO-AMERICANS - MARYLAND

Websites

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