Welcome to the
Sourwine Family History
The Great Migration From Germany
About 1720 Emperor Karl V1 sponsored the migration of German
peasants and craftsmen to Hungary to develop a protective barrier to
threats from the Turkish Empire. Among the immigrants from Altheim
was a Michael Sauerwein with his wife and seven children. Also in
the 18th century Russian Empress Katherine II invited German
peasants to colonize the southern part of Russia. Some 8,000
families responded, the impetus perhaps having been, as it happened
in 1741, the loss of half of the year's crop.
The largest migration, from Germany to America, took place in the
19th century. Between 1832 and 1855, 51 families, including 170
children, and 40 single persons left Altheim. Another 141 residents
had migrated by 1896.
Immigrants to America were searching for a better future. Life in
many small villages had been so poor that townspeople struggled to
put food on the table. Wars, bad harvests, floods, human and
livestock diseases and debts all contributed to the desperate quest
for the opportunity beckoning from America.
Piling their possession atop peasant carts, the searchers from
Altheim made their way to the Rhine river where they boarded boats
for Rotterdam in Holland. There they found ships sailing to America.
The Sauerwein families from Altheim and Harpertshausen, a village
adjacent to Altheim added to the thousands fleeing from Germany.
Sauerweins had lived in Altheim before the 30 Year War (1618 -
1648). In 1836 Johann Wendel Sauerwein1 went to America, followed in
1837 by his cousin Wendel Sauerwein 2, who took with him his wife,
four children and his parents. Among his many descendants in America
is Juanita Sourwine Gregg of Riverside, CA, with whom I have
corresponded for many years.
Helmut Walter
Retired Pastor, Altheim Lutheran Church
Translated by
Kurt Schultz
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