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From: "Frank Brehm" <>
Subject: Re: [G-P-L] [GERMANY-PASSENGER-LISTS] Conscription
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 19:29:42 -0500
References: <mailman.6342.1157395421.28309.germany-passenger-lists@rootsweb.com><44FD734B.6030603@comcast.net><012d01c6d120$db618d80$02cb0d82@Jerry>


DON'T YOU READ YOUR E-MAIL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Fosdick" <>
To: <"Wayne Straight"@mail.rootsweb.com>;
<>
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: [G-P-L] [GERMANY-PASSENGER-LISTS] Conscription


> Wayne,
> Are you related to any Streit? I know that they spell the name in several
> ways. My Gr Gran-father came from (Luxemburg) to NY 26 April 1855. Thanks
> Gerald
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wayne J. Straight" <>
> To: <>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 5:53 AM
> Subject: Re: [G-P-L] [GERMANY-PASSENGER-LISTS] Conscription
>
>
> > Hi Folks;
> >
> > I did a good bit of research to try to understand why so many of my
> > ancestors fled Schleswig-Holstein in the mid-19th Century. This led me
> > to understand that up until the time of the Prussian takeover, most if
> > not all Germans were citizens of "city states", such as Hessen, Hanover
> > or Holstein. If a German peasant had any patriotic feelings at all they
> > were to one of these city states, vice a German federation (chances are
> > that any such loyalties went no further than the local village). Since
> > the Prussians required registration for conscription at a very early age
> > (15, if I remember correctly), and since the young men felt absolutely
> > no loyalty to Prussia, many fled elsewhere to avoid the draft. Once
> > having arrived in the US however, their point of view in re citizenship
> > often did a 180. Thus the irony that many who fled Prussia to avoid the
> > draft ended up enlisting in US Federal or CSA military units.
> >
> > One interesting sidebar of my research is the discovery that my
> > ancestors didn't even speak the same language as their Prussian
> > "countrymen". They spoke Plattedeutsch vice German. Also known as
> > Low-Saxon, this is a Germanic tongue more closely allied to Danish,
> > Dutch and English than to proper German.
> >
> > Cheers, Masugu
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
> > with the word 'unsubscribe'
> > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
> >
> >
>
>
>
> -------------------------------
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