In any event, we (Lutherans) stopped being German after WWI, which is why I am unable to read any of my family's older books, including the family bible:
"Historians have tried to explain what became of the German Americans and their descendents. Kazal (2004) looks at Germans in Philadelphia, focusing on four ethnic subcultures: middle-class Vereinsdeutsche, working-class socialists, Lutherans, and Catholics. Each group followed a somewhat distinctive path toward assimilation. Lutherans, and the better situated Vereinsdeutsche with whom they often overlapped, after World War I abandoned the last major German characteristics and redefined themselves as old stock or as "Nordic" Americans, stressing their colonial roots in Pennsylvania and distancing themselves from more recent immigrants."
Fortunately, one of my other ancestors bailed out of the Amish community a few generations ago or I would be growing up without electricity like my third cousins.
Last edited by JonLaw; 05/11/13 07:06 AM.
