(Please note that Franklin and Marshall College does not administer the JSHA certificate program, publish the JSHA's journal The Hessians: Journal of the Johannes Schwalm Historical Association, publish the website jsha.org or otherwise have responsibility for fulfilling the mission of the JSHA. All inquiries not related to the research collection as listed should be directed toward the JSHA)

Instructions for submitting an inquiry

Due to the volume of requests, we cannot conduct cold searches for the name of an ancestor "thought to have been a Hessian". View our inventory of the collection for the name of your ancestor. If there is a specific file of interest we can make copies of it for you (see photocopy policies). Due to heavy interest in the collection, please allow four to six weeks when submitting an inquiry. The Archives and Special Collections staff will do everything possible to reply in a timely and accurate manner.

If your ancestor is not on our inventory we cannot provide any additional information and, regretfully, questions of this type will not be answered. (Please note that in many cases the material that we do have on file does not contain much more than what is listed on the JSHA's online registry or in published profiles and articles in the JSHA's Journal. This is especially the case concerning a Hessian's German origins and antecendents in which we have very little information.) When looking for a name not in our inventory or in the JSHA registry/journal, standard sources that you should consult via your local library or interlibrary loan include:

Researching your ancestor

Please understand the staff cannot conduct research concerning specific soldiers. For professional genealogical services, please visit the Johannes Schwalm Historical Association's primer for genealogical research at:

http://pages.prodigy.net/halschwalm/jshaprim.html

The county or local historical society and/or library in the area where your ancestor settled may have local histories, genealogies, cemetery registers, obituaries, newspapers, etc. that document your ancestor.

County or municipal government offices such as the Recorder of Deeds, Register of Wills, etc. and local and regional church archives are another major source of documentation. For Hessians who settled in Pennsylvania who were likely members of the Reformed or Lutheran Churches the Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society and Lutheran Archives Center at Philadelphia may be helpful.

Information on Hessian ancestors before they settled in North America may be available in German archives. Information concerning persons from the prinicipality of Hesse-Cassel (the area supplying the majority of troops known as "Hessians") may be found at the Hessisches Staatsarchiv in Marburg, Germany. Information about Duchy of Braunschweig (Brunswick) soldiers may be found through the Niedersachsisches Landesarchiv in Hannover, Germany. Information on Ansbach-Bayreuth troops may be found through Die staatlichen Archive in Bayern.

Information on Hessians who settled in Canada may be found at the Library and Archives Canada, the Archives Nationales Quebec, and the Marilyn Adams Genealogical Research Centre of the 7th Town Historical Society.

Information on Hessian units in the service of Great Britain including information on ship transport may be found at the British National Archives.

Additional sources of information on Hessian troops in general in the American Revolution can be found at the Sons of the American Revolution library, David Library of the American Revolution, U.S. Army Military History Institute, the Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and through your local library. The website AMREV-Hessian mailing list may also be helpful.

The Archives and Special Collections of Franklin and Marshall College also maintains several other collections relating to German-American culture and history which can be viewed at this link.

Contacting or visiting us

Inquiries relating directly to the JSHA research collection can be directed to:

Visiting in person:

All persons are welcome to schedule appointments to visit the Archives and Special Collections to conduct research in person using the collection. However, since the collection is secondary in nature and there is limited information available on specific soldiers, it is not recommended that persons make a special trip from long distances just to use the collection, as they are likely to be disappointed. In general, the collection is more helpful to those beginning their Hessian soldier search and those seeking information on the soldier's life in North America than for those who already have a great deal of information or are looking for information on their prior life in Germany.