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| Menno Simons |
Menno Simons (ca 1496-1561) was a Dutch religious reformer. In 1536 he left the Roman Catholic priesthood because of his disagreement of infant baptism and other Catholic teachings. He organized and led the less aggressive division of Anabaptists in Germany and Holland. The name Mennonites is derived from his name, although he did not actually found the sect. The Mennonites were a Protestant sect which arose from Swiss Anabaptists. They were also called Swiss Brethren.
During the sixteenth century, the Mennonites and other Anabaptists were relentlessly persecuted. By the seventeenth century, some of them joined the state church in Switzerland and persuaded the authorities to relent in their attacks. The Mennonites outside the state church were divided on whether to remain in communion with their brothers within the state church, and this led to a split. Those against remaining in communion with them became known as the Amish, after their founder Jacob Amman. Those who remained in communion with them retained the name Mennonite
A few Dutch Mennonites began the immigration to America in 1683, followed by a larger immigration of Swiss-German Mennonites beginning in 1707. In the 1870s Dutch Mennonites, who had settled in the German Kingdom of Prussia and then Russia, moved to the United States and Canada where they became known as Russian Mennonites. Many Mennonites settled in Pennsylvania. Large numbers immigrated further into Ontario Canada especially Waterloo County
My Mennonite ancestors who came to Ontario Canada were Burkholder, Gingrich, and Hunsicker
- Burkholder Mennonite Genealogy - Ancestry of Jacob Burkholder of Hamilton Ontario (Switzerland to Pennsylvania to Ontario)
- Gingrich Mennonite Genealogy - Gingrich Family, Switzerland to Pennsylvania to Ontario
- Hunsicker Mennonite Genealogy - Hunsicker, Hunsecker, Hunsiker, Hunziger, Huntzinger and Hunsucker families of Switzlerland
Mennonite Ships Passenger Lists
Mennonites to Canada
Mennonite Family Trees
Historical Mennonite Overview
3 comments:
By 1805, my 3x great grandfather John Yundt, of Lancaster County, had purchased five lots in Waterloo Township. A group of Mennonites had been invited to settle there, but upon arrival, found that the land was still owned by the Indians, not by whom claimed to own the land. They returned to Lancaster seeking funds. Hannes Eby, Mennonite, a neighbor of John Yundt's, convinced him to invest by purchasing lots in the proposed town.
It took a great deal of work to solve this as all the references were to Upper Canada, a term with which I was unfamiliar
Another source is the GRanDMA database, for people in Canada & USA especially, whose ancestors were from Prussia & Russia, now in Poland & the Ukraine areas. Good searching & good luck!!
The GRanDMA database (Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry) is run
by the California Mennonite Historical Society --
https://www.grandmaonline.org/GW-ASP-5/Login.asp
I have family that lived in Lancaster, York and surrounding counties in Penn. I also have a branch that lived in Ontario. But I don't know if they were Mennonite or Amish.
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