Research Mission

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The GBHS was founded in 1984 for the purpose of gathering information about the immigration and culture of the ethnic German people from Bohemia to Minnesota. It was discovered that a very large chain migration took place starting in the latter part of the 19th century and continuing until WWI from Kries Bischofteinitz, Tachau, and Mies to the town of New Ulm and the surrounding rural counties of Brown and Nicollet. With this migration, a significant transplantation of culture also took place, especially of language and music. This information was gathered and presented in a book published by the society entitled German-Bohemians, The Quiet Immigrants.

Since the founding of the society, the scope of it research has broadened significantly. During research done by Ken Meter and myself, we discovered that there was likewise a significant immigration of German-Bohemians to other parts of the U.S. North central and northeastern Wisconsin has a significant population of Germans from Bohemia, primarily from the Bshmerwald area of southwestern Bohemia in Kreis Markt Eisenstein, Prachatitz. There is also a significant settlement of German-Bohemians in eastern North Dakota near the towns of Alice and Jessie. I discovered from the Catholic Church records of St. Agnes Parish in St. Paul, Minnesota, that a large group of emigrants from Kreis Krummau, Kaplitz, Budweis and Prachatitz also settled in that parish during the last half of the 19th century. These groups along with the New Ulm German-Bohemians, are described in a booklet published by the society entitled Border People, The Bohmish (German-Bohemians) in America. It has also been learned there is a large group of German-Bohemians from the Landskron area of eastern Bohemia that settled near Watertown, Wisconsin, just east of Madison. Mr. Ed Langer has done extensive research into this group. There also seems to be a concentration of emigrants from Falkenau on the Eger living in and near Milwaukee, Wisconsin and also a group from western Bohemia in Buffalo, New York.

In addition to all these early immigrants, there are large numbers of pre WWII immigrants in parts of western Canada and many post WWII emigrants living in Chicago, New York and many other large cities in the U.S. that have a sizable German populations.

I am sure that there are other areas in the the U.S. as well as New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico and Brazil with significant numbers of German emigrants from Bohemia, however, we have not to this point been able to locate them.

We are also most interested in obtaining any additional information that you care to share with us about German-Bohemian immigration, history, culture, genealogy, etc. for our,webpage.

Robert Paulson: rpaulgb@yahoo.com