• The staff of the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth.
  

• The staff of the Archives of Gwent at Cwmbran.
  

• The staff of the Historical Museum at Usk
  

• The staff of the  Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania
  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  

• The staff of the  Historical Society of Montgomery County
  1654 DeKalb Street, Norristown, Pennsylvania  19401-5415
  (610) 272-0297
  

Historical background of the Edward Nicholas family of Pennsylvania

The land which subsequently came to be known as "Pennsylvania" was granted by King Charles II of England to William Penn in 1681, in liquidation of a debt of £16,000 which the British crown owed Admiral Sir William Penn, Penn's deceased father. He had fee-simple title to more than 40,000 square miles of territory. It was the largest tract ever granted in America to a single individual. Penn was made the proprietary of the province, invested with the privilege of creating a political government.

In 1682, Penn, who was a Quaker preacher, sailed to America where he founded the City of Philadelphia and helped establish Pennsylvania in accordance with Quaker principles.

Under his charter, Penn was also governor of the province, which he and his sons held as proprietors, with the exception of about two years under William III, until the revolution of 1776. Thus, in a strict sense, Pennsylvania was not the colony of any foreign power. But as a British subject, Penn owed allegiance to the Crown, and while the government of Pennsylvania was proprietary in form, it was English in substance, and non-British subjects were considered foreigners.

In order to develop his colony and generate income from it, Penn and his agents actively encouraged settlement by British subjects, particularly the Welsh.

At the time Pennsylvania was founded, Germany was in a state of religious turmoil, disunion, and depression from the results of the Reformation and the Thirty Year's War. Her once-peaceful valleys, thriving fields, and vine-clad hills had become the hunting grounds of political and religious fanatics.

Penn and other Quaker missionaries toured the German states promising religious and political liberty in Pennsylvania. The response was immediate since a considerable number of small sects had sprung up and were being actively persecuted as heretics by the larger Protestant groups.

The first German immigration of which a specific record survives is that of a colony of Mennonites, often called "German Quakers," led by Francis Daniel Pastorius. They came in two sections. The America, Captain Joseph Wasey, master, landed at Philadelphia on 20 August 1683 with Pastorius, eight Germans, and an English maid. The main body followed shortly afterwards. They came with Captain Jeffries on the ship, "Concord", landing 6 October 1683. Shortly afterwards, on 24 October of the same year, Pastorius founded "Germantown" for them, where 42 people settled in 12 homes. Most of them were weavers, the rest were farmers and tradesman. These were the German "Pilgrim Fathers," who sought and found freedom of worship in Pennsylvania.

From then until 1702, such groups as the Tunkers, Labadists, New Born, New Mooners, Separatists, Zion's Brueder, Ronsdorfer, Inspired Quietists, Gichtellians, Depellians, Mountain Men, River Brethren, Brinser Brethren, The Society of Women in the Wilderness, and the Amish migrated to the tolerant province.

The later German migrations (after 1702) consisted of more orthodox church people, mostly Lutherans and the German Reformed, or Calvinists.

By 1727 there were perhaps as many as 15,000 Germans and their descendants in the province of Pennsylvania, settled mainly in the area comprising the present-day counties of Northampton, Bucks, Lancaster, Lehigh, Dauphin, Lebanon, and York. However, the names and dates of arrival of only a few hundred of the thousands of German immigrants coming through the Port of Philadelphia prior to 18 September 1727 are known.

From that date on, the colonial government required ships' captains to submit lists of their German and other Continental passengers due to a growing concern about the potential dangers of the sizable influx of non-English speaking immigrants whose political antecedents were uncertain. In addition, adult males over 16 were required to sign two oaths: an oath of allegiance and an oath of abjuration. These requirements were suspended in 1775.

In 1785, the Commonwealth reinstated the ship list requirement, but, of course, no more oaths of allegiance to the King of England or abjuration of foreign rulers and prelates were demanded. In 1808, even the ship listings were discontinued.