Hidden Jewish Immigrants to the Pennsylvania Colonies
By Dr. Douglas Schar
Dr. Schar regales us with tales of glassmakers, Swiss gypsies (the Yenish people) and the last woman in Switzerland executed for witchcraft, Anna Göldi (d. 1782). Here is one of his fascinating historical sketches, a free book on his website
Many, many American families got their start in the Pennsylvania colony. They arrived at Pennsylvania, stayed for a bit, and then moved west as the country expanded towards the Pacific coast. It would be fair to estimate millions of Americans immigrant story started when they arrived at the Philadelphia port.
Some years ago, I found the book, “A Collection of Upwards of Thirty Thousand Names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French and Other Immigrants in Pennsylvania from 1727-1776.” This collection was compiled by Israel Daniel Rupp and is simply astonishing. It is literally a list of all the immigrants that arrived at the Pennsylvania colony between 1727-1776.
This is a prime example of old school genealogy. First, Rupp collected all the ship manifests for all the ships that ferried immigrants between Europe and the Pennsylvania colony between 1727 and 1776. Then he typed up all the data contained in each ship manifest, ship name, captain, and passengers included, chronologically. This book represents years of work on the part of Mr. Rupp. If your ancestors arrived at Pennsylvania in the colonial days, you will find your ancestors in this book.
My research reveals that many of the immigrants listed in Rupp’s book, were of Jewish descent. They left Europe as Jews and upon arrival to the new colony, they joined a Quaker or a Mennonite church, and thus disappeared their Jewish ancestry.
When I say this mighty book contains ALL the immigrants to Pennsylvania, I should say all the men. One of the peculiarities of the ship manifests is they do not list women, be they mothers, wives, or daughters. Women are not listed. If you wondered how women were rated in those days, wonder no more. There were women on these ships, but you will not find them in Israel Daniel Rupp’s inventory. They were not listed in the original ship manifests and thus do not appear in his catalogue of Pennsylvania immigrants.
This is unfortunate, as I have learned: Women not being listed on these ship manifests, results in skewed family histories.
Some of my ancestors were Jewish glassmakers in Germany. Glassmakers married glassmakers. In this way, they kept the secrets of their trade, secret. My ancestor and glass factory owner Johan Georg Reppert(1732-1791) married the daughter of a glassmaker Katharina Margaretha Volz(1744-1820). Johan and Katharina had six children. When Johan Georg died, Katharina took over the management of the factory. This was the case in glassmaking families. Katharina was not just the daughter of a glassmaker; she was a glassmaker in her own right.
Katharina did not like what was happening in Germany and decided to move her glassmaking operation and children to America. The local aristocrat did not like the idea, as it would cost him income, and attempted to detain her.
For this to make sense, we must take a backward step. Glass makers had contracts with aristocrats which enabled them to use the aristocrat’s sand and wood to make glass, for a percentage of the profits, for a set period. Written into all contracts with glassmakers was the ability to leave at any time for any reason. When the aristocrat tried to compel Katharina to stay in Germany, Katharina took her contract to court and secured her safe passage out of Germany. Katherina, glass maker and iron lady, stood up to the powered elite to get she and her children out of Germany. She sold up, moved her six children across the ocean to Pennsylvania, and opened up a glass works in Baltimore. Remarkable woman. You will not find her on Rupp’s inventory. Just her sons.
Though Rupp’s book only enumerates half the immigrants to Pennsylvania, that is what we must work with. However, if you family came to America by way of Pennsylvania, his book is awfully helpful.
Back to the topic at hand. As I was reading the names found on the ship manifests, 30,000 of them, it was abundantly clear to me many of the passengers had German Jewish surnames.
In addition to this, I had knowledge of a very strange affair. There was a Jewish messiah by the name of Jean Labadie in the 17th century in Germany. He had his own Christian religion, perhaps cult is a better term, which he ran in Hereford, Germany. Not only was he of Jewish descent, but his religion attracted persons of a Jewish origin. William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, travelled to Hereford in 1671, to convince the Jewish Labadie and his Jewish followers to join the Quaker movement and relocate to Pennsylvania. Labadie passed, but the Quakers continued to urge the Labadists to come to Pennsylvania. As it turns out, some Labbadists did make the trek to Pennsylvania.
Because so many of the immigrants listed in Rupp’s book carried German Jewish surnames, I decided to do a little more study. I put all of Rupp’s 30,000 immigrants’ names into a spread sheet and created a database of 30,000 known German Jewish surnames. I then merged the files, and then collected the direct matches. The result of that very laborious process was this. 11,920 of the 30,000 immigrants found in Rupp’s catalogue of immigrants to Pennsylvania carried German Jewish surnames. The full list can be found on my website, www.hiddenjewishancestry.com
I found my ancestor, Conrad Winkler in Rupp’s book. The entry reads like this:
September 24, 1753, Ship Neptune, John Mason, Master, from Rotterdam, last from Cowes. Passenger: Condradt Winkler
The Neptunes ship also lists Thomas and Jacob Winkler. The Neptune Winkler’s became a genealogical mystery because no one knew how they were related, or if they were related. It remained a mystery until ancestry DNA testing became a thing. DNA results of their descendants revealed that Thomas and Conradt were brothers or cousins. None of Jacobs descendants could be found to determine his relationship to the other Winkler’s.
I was able get the DNA results for my ancestor Conrad Winkler. Because Winkler is a known German Jewish last name, I suspected the Winkler’s were Jewish. To determine if this was the case, I then compared Condradt’s DNA to the DNA of men of known Jewish ancestry. Specifically, I compared his DNA to groups of Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Ukrainian, German, and Mallorcan Jewish men. The result was quite revealing. Condradt Winkler was a close DNA match to a lot of Jewish men from a lot of countries. Below you will find Conradt Winklers DNA matches to men of known Jewish ancestry. The country is followed by the number of direct matches.
| Spain 94 |
| Germany 26 |
| United Kingdom 23 |
| United States 21 |
| Ireland 19 |
| Portugal 17 |
| Puerto Rico 11 |
| Ukraine 10 |
| England 9 |
| Netherlands 9 |
| Peru 9 |
| Poland 9 |
| Mexico 8 |
| Scottland 8 |
| Brazil 7 |
| Iran 6 |
| France 5 |
| Greece 4 |
The interesting thing is Conradt Winkler has a lot more matches to Sephardic Jews than Ashkenazic Jews. In that he came from Switzerland, and had a German name, one would expect him to match more Ashkenazi Jews. But this was not the case. Maybe his family migrated from Spain to the Swiss hills after they were invited to leave the Iberian Peninsula.
Either way, Conradt Winkler can be found in Israel Daniel Rupps book of immigrants to Pennsylvania, 1727-1776, had a known German Jewish name, and is a genetic match to a lot of men of known Jewish ancestry. Condradt Winkler was a Jew.
I then looked at a few of the other 11,920 passengers who arrived at the Pennsylvania colony bearing a Jewish surname. I studied 14 of them and they too were direct DNA matches to men of known Jewish ancestry.
If your family arrived at Pennsylvania, between 1727 and 1776, there is a good chance you have hidden Jewish ancestry. Or if you have discovered you have Jewish ancestry, and don’t know where it came from, if your family first landed in Pennsylvania, you might have your answer.
One way to start the process is to take DNA Consultants’ Jewish DNA Fingerprint Plus Test. I did, and with all my Jewish ancestors, it was no surprise that the test revealed both my father and mother had Jewish DNA matches. Both my parents’ family surnames going back as far as possible can be found in Rupp’s list of immigrants and they had Jewish markers.
Douglas Schar, Ph.D. is a historical consultant who contributes pieces on crypto-Jewish genealogy. He is the creator of the site Hidden Jewish Ancestry (which is highly recommended). One of his current history/genealogy projects is to make the so-called Alien Rolls of London (ca. 1520-1820) better known. These records mark the appearance in England (and thence to America) of Sephardic Jewish families which we think of today as “good old English stock,” such as Adams, Anderson, Drake, Davis and others. Another of his projects is testing the overlap between Gypsy/Roma and Jewish genealogy in Scotland, Spain and among Pennsylvania Dutch families.
See also
Basic Jewish DNA Fingerprint Test (DNA test)
Jewish DNA Fingerprint Plus (DNA test)
Jewish (population page)
Jews and Muslims in British Colonial America (book)
The Early Jews and Muslims of England and Wales (book)
Was Your Colonial Forebear Jewish? (blog post, April 21, 2014, includes surname index)
Book of Jewish and Crypto-Jewish Surnames (book)
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