ISKENIUS LETTERS: From Germany to New York 1726-1737
- Author: Frank J. Sypher
- SKU: 1516
- ISBN: 0897251695
- Our Price:
$19.50
-
Description:
(NEW YORK). THE ISKENIUS LETTERS: >From Germany to New York 1726-1737. Edited and translated by Frank J. Sypher. 126 pp. 16 photos, maps, illus., orig documents. Place Name Index and 448 entry Every Name Index. Smythe sewn and hard cover. 1994. #1516 $19.50
"Carefully edited and well produced work. ...reflects genuine expertise and the high quality characteristic of the publications of Picton Press." - 1995 Yearbook of German-American Studies.
"Recommended to students of immigration history, and genealogists with Palatine Roots." - The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.
"These letters like the rare diary open a window to the past and allow us an intimate look at life as it was then." - Der Kurier, quarterly journal of the Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society.
"A book with strong emotional impact" - Palatine Immigrant
Lists of immigrants, even if accompanied by church, court, and tax records, seldom show us the hearts and minds of the individuals involved. For this we must turn to the rare for the early 18th century immigrants, very rare indeed letters to and from the immigrants and their families, which offer us windows into the past.
When the language of the immigrant is different (and very few American genealogists today can either speak, or read and write German, much less 18th century German) the obstacles become enormous and the character of the immigrants often remains locked away.
The Iskenius Letters offers a window into the past. Here, wonderfully transcribed and printed in both the original German as well as translated into 20th century English, F. J. Sypher brings us a series of such letters.
The letters span the first three decades in New York of one family, the Iskenius family from Flammersfeld in the Westerwald region of Germany. Their letters bring us keen insight into the thoughts and feelings, the financial and social reactions, and perhaps most important, some of the motivations, of one of the many German families involved in the large 1710 settlement of German families in New York ancestors of millions of Americans today.
