Schleswig-Holstein Emigration and Immigration

19th Century Emigration

 * Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschitchte: Emigration discusses motivations, trends, and statistics for emigration during the 19th century.

Colonists
Around 1750 the Danish king Friedrich V began to recruit colonists for the Schleswig and Jutland heath. The areas were sparsely populated and needed cultivation. Since such an attempt would be a great effort on part of the settlers, the government was very accommodating with free travel, erection of houses, free seed and exemption of taxes for several years. Most people responded from Württemberg, Baden, Hessen and Kurpfalz as their names reveal: Klein, Peisel, Höfferle, Krüger, Kaufmann, Vogel, Oberländer, Ratz, Frey, Reble, Huber, Herbach, Düderle, Günther, Dockweiler, Metzger, Grün, Schleth, Ertzinger, Lambrecht, Glaser, Beck, Licht, Stahl, Kellermann, Scheelhaas, Gasmann, Fahner, Feller, Kranich, Ritz, Jost, Glöckner, Knies, Lautenschläger and many more. Around 1760, the colonists appeared first in Kropp and surrounds. They were almost all Lutherans. Like other “foreigners”, the settlers kept to themselves, i.e., witnesses at baptisms were usually fellow countrymen. Others found the conditions unbearable and went home or settled elsewhere. Only later generations started to assimilate.

see: Archiv für Sippenforschung 5. Jahrgang, 1928, 298/h. Hansen, H. Die Besiedlung des schleswigschen Mittelrückens durch Oberdeutsche