Refugees in London

When I think of early immigration to the United States from the part of Europe that is now Germany, I tend to think of German settlers in Pennsylvania, many of whom were religious dissenters like the Mennonite ancestors I have written about in a previous post. As a result, I was quite surprised to learn that my seven-times great-grandfather, Johann Henrich Krantz, arrived in New York in 1710 and settled along the Hudson River in Ulster County. As I learned more about why he arrived when and where he did, I came to see many parallels between his experience and that of refugees and asylum seekers today.