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"From Prussia to Russia to North America: 300 Years" order information

What started out as a simple project for our children has grown into a fairly complete rendering of who we are and where we came from amounting to 150 pages in 8 1/2" by 11" format. To give you an idea of what it covers I've summarized the content in the following fashion here:

Our Mennonite roots in relation to the religious faith/beliefs/traditions ---> 13 pages

Prussia and the first known family members from the mid 1500's to about 1789. This includes how they came to live in Prussia (northern Poland), the legal and religious environment, where Plattdeutsch came from and why, reasons for leaving to migrate to southern Russia ---> 11 pages

Southern Russia (Ukraine) and the political causes that gave rise to an invitation from Catherine the Great II, the immigrations from 1789 - the early 1800's, the rise of the colonies, life on the steppes, our family in the Ukraine from 1789 - 1876. This includes coverage of the Chortitza colony (the very first colony), the Molotschna colony (Quiring, Fast, Siemen families), and the Bergthal colony (Sawatzky, Rempel, Harder families). ---> 33 pages

The dispersion to various parts of the world, political and religious causes underlined in Russia, and destinations in Canada, the US, Mexico, Brazil. Answers to the questions about why some went to Canada while others insisted on the midwestern US, and still others went further south. Covers roughly the period of 1874 till 1930 ---> 15 pages

A family portrait covering Peter P Harder and Margaretha Sawatzky, George P Quiring and Anna Siemens, Peter S Harder and Mary G Quiring ---> 21 pages

Appendix that includes the agreement between Catherine the Great II and the Mennonite community, in-depth review of the origins of the Rempel name which illustrates some of the difficulty in ascertaining the origin of our family tree and surname, listing of migrations into Prussia and into southern Russia from 1763 to 1862, family tree (pedigree chart) respectively for the Peter and Margaretha Harder family from the present back to the early 1700's and the George and Anna Quiring family from the present back to the late 1700's --->36 pages

I mention these details in order to reassure you this is no superficial treatment of the history we have so often discussed in our family gatherings and not known the answers to. Often I have heard the stories about where the Plattdeutsch I grew up speaking, came from. Are they based on fact? Are we really of Dutch origins or could we be German or Swiss based on the earliest records we have knowledge of? Did Catherine the Great invite our forefathers to Russia because she liked hard working Mennonites? Or was someone else behind this large migration that circumvented national laws and frustrated governments? Were the Russian Mennonites really all that poor?

More than 200 footnotes to substantiate and elaborate on the contents of the book, providing a rich trail of sources for the new genealogy researcher.
Twenty five reference works listed for follow-up and additional reading.
More than 40 illustrations and photographs.
Nine Appendix entries for greater detail.
Complete Index of all significant place names and individuals mentioned in the book.

Purchase a copy in electronic format (Acrobat PDF):

From Prussia to Russia to North America: 300 Years

Updated 3/10/2002