How do i find if my grandfather 4generations back was pennsylvania dutch or amish ?

Question

iam researching my ansestory and i have been to ancestory.com.iam French and Dutch and reason to believe that my grandfather 4th back being born in Pennsyvania may have been part of one of these communties between 1792 and 1850.

Answer 1

Post his name and I can tell you in about 20 minutes. There were only a couple of dozen surnames among the Pennsylvania Dutch, Yoder being the most common. Their heritage is extremely well documented and I can tap into some of the databases to let you know if he was or he wasn't.

ETA: I got your email and sent the search results back. You're not Pennsylvania Dutch, but your family is from the eastern part of the state and was probably German.

Answer 2

What you need to work is exactly where your 4-grandfather was, in Pennsylvania, as you mentioned, between 1792 to 1850. You'll need his specific dates and places.
www.usgenweb.com has (free) county based sites for the entire country, once you are certain of his location.
You also could repost his name (with what you know) and see what others can pull up. Gen's mom is excellent as well.

Answer 3

you could start here and then focus on the counties or communities where your ancestors lived

http://www.rootsweb.com/~pagenweb/

"PAGenWeb Project is the State resource for Pennsylvania research. "

Addendum: From this site I've found where many relatives haves been buried

Answer 4

One way would be to find his grave. If he was in the Amish Cemetery, chances are he was Amish. Ditto Quaker, Old German Baptist, Mennonite . . .

Answer 5

Start by asking any living relatives for info; write everything down...names, dates, places. Make certain to write down the source...who said what.
Our local library has www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com free for use, plus books, periodicals and a volunteer who helps folks with genealogy.
There are plenty of websites available:
Anyhew, as to searching, try these:
Free sites: there are several to choose from. Start with:
http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/...

http://www.cyndislist.com/

Assuming they emigrated from Europe, start with Ellis Island and the Battery Conservancy sites:
http://www.ellisisland.org
http://www.castlegarden.org

For Scotland, check:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

For ship’s passenger lists, try:
http://www.immigrantships.net/
www.cyndislist.com/ships.htm
www.geocities.com/Heartland/5978/Emigr...
www.immigrantstips.net/
www.searchforancestors.com/passengerli...
www.archives.gov/genealogy/immigration...

For those with native American ancestry, try:
http://www.tribalpages.com/
http://www.cherokee-nc.com/geneology.php...
http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/herita...

Netherlanders: http://www.genlias.nl

For a fee, try a DNA test:
When you really want to know where your ancestors came from, try such sites as: www.familytreedna.com, dnatribes.com, dnaancestryproject.com, and, of course, the National Geographics Genotype program, https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/geno...
For Jewish ancestry, try:
www.israelgenealogy.com

For people from India, try:
http://www.fibis.org/

Have a look at these sites these are South African ones,
http://genealogy.about.com/od/south_afri...
http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/page2.html....
http://www.jewishgen.org/safrica/website...
http://southafricanfamilyhistory.wordpre...

Meaning of names:
http://www.winslowtree.com/surname-meani...

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f...

Here are some general sites with lists of African names:
http://www.swagga.com/fname.htm
http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/afr.php
http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.com/ba...

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...

Military:
www.military.com
http://www.familymilitaryrecords.com/

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/militar...

http://websearch.about.com/od/peoplesear...

http://genealogy.about.com/b/2007/05/24/...

http://userdb.rootsweb.com/ww1/draft/sea...

Finding live people:
Two good places I use are www.zabasearch.com and www.peoplefinder.com

www.nationalobituaryarchive.com
http://www.obitcentral.com/obitsearch/
http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/
http://zip.langenberg.com/

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/howto/w2w/w2welc...
http://www.tedpack.org/obit.html


http://www.newspaperarchive.com/
http://ancestryresearchsitereviews.blogs...
http://www.search-background.com

http://www.birthdatabase.com/
http://www.intelius.com/search-summary-o...
peoplesearch.com
smartpages.com. to get to US Search

http://www.intelius.com/search-summary-o...

http://affiliates.reunion.com/ads/ads/la...

http://www.peoplelookup.com/people-searc...

http://people.yahoo.com/

http://www.addresses.com/

http://websearch.about.com/od/wendyssear...

http://www.anywho.com/

http://www.whowhere.com/

http://www.nola.com/forums/searching/ind...

http://www.77investigators.com/messagebo...

http://www.voy.com/48081/

http://messages.yahoo.com/

http://www.angelfire.com/va3/search/Mess...

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com
http://www.ntis.gov/products/pages/ssa-d...

http://www.search-background.com

Some folks on here try to say anything back more than 100 - 200 years ago is just made up. Not true. A Martin Genealogy, Tied to the History of Germanna, Virginia, William A. Martin, Copyright 1995, William A. Martin, Published 1995 by Heritage Books, Inc., 1540E Pointer ridge Place, Bowie, MD 20716 [phone]; Customer Service, [phone]. goes back to the 1400s. His work is based upon other world reknown genealogists. Then there are the works by Pope: Pioneers of Massachusetts, Charles Henry Pope, Published 1991 by Heritage Books, Inc.. A Descriptive List, Drawn from Records of the Colonies, Towns and Churches, and other Contemporaneous Documents. By Charles Henry Pope, Pastor First Church, Charlestown, Boston, Compiler of the Dorchester Pope Family, the Cheney Genealogy, etc. Royalty for Commoners by Roderick W. Stuart, Pub: Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1993, Subtitled: The Complete Known Lineage of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, King of England, Philippa.. Reviewed in TAG, Apr 1994 by Dr. David H. Kelly. Note: Poor, p. 103.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1760 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Pub. 7th ed., Genealogical Publishing, Baltimore, 1992 or “Ancestral Roots of 60 Colonists Who Came to New England, 1623 - 1650, Ed. 1 - 6, J H Garner.
Ancestry of Richard Plantagenet and Cecily deNeville by Ernst Friedrich Kraentzler, 1978.
soc.genealogy.medieval

These are just a few of the RELIABLE source books that go back centuries...Including Charlemagne.

If you can't believe these sources, there really are none you can believe in.