Jacob Clemens Sr.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Family Event, Abt 1670. My older brother John and I were puritans who immigrated to the American Colony with fellow puritan brethren.

• Returned, 1677. I returned from the American Colonies to marry my wife, Mary. We were married in England.

• Moved, Bef 1680. We moved to Niederfloersheim, Prussia

• Moved, After 1684. We moved back to England.

• Moved, 1702. Mary and I decided to immigrate to Holland due to continued persecution in England. After settling in Holland, I changed my surname from the English “Clement” to the Dutch form of the word, which was Clemens.

• Notes of Interest. ⁶⁷² 1. Germany as a country has not existed very long. Prior to 1871, Germany consisted of a number of separate states, such as Wuerttemberg, Prussia and Bavaria. However, their boundaries changed frequently as a result of war and other causes. A “Palatine” is someone who came from the region of Germany called “The Palatinate. The Palatinate was located along the Rhine River about where the modern German state of Rhineland-Pfalz is located.

The Palatinate (Pfalz) included the lands of the Count Palatine, a title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Geographically, the Palatinate was divided between two small territorial clusters: the Rhenish, or Lower Palatinate, and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhenish Palatinate included lands on both sides of the Middle Rhine River between its Main and Neckar tributaries. Its capital until the 18th century was Heidelberg. The Upper Palatinate was located in northern Bavaria, on both sides of the Naab River as it flows south toward the Danube, and extended eastward to the Bohemian Forest. The boundaries of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic fortunes of the Count.

During the War of the Grand Alliance in 1689-1697, the troops of the French monarch Louis XIV ravaged the Rhenish Palatinate, causing many Germans to emigrate. Many of the early German settlers of America known as the Pennsylvania Dutch were refugees from the Palatinate. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Palatinate's lands on the west bank of the Rhine were incorporated into France, while its eastern lands were divided largely between neighboring Baden and Hesse.

After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna gave the east-bank lands to Bavaria. These lands, together with some surrounding territories, again took the name of Palatinate in 1838.

In the 18th and early 19th century, the term “Palatine” was used in America to describe immigrants from “The Palatinate” and other adjoining German-speaking areas. Finding an American reference to someone being from the “Palatinate” may not point to a specific place of origin, but rather an approximate location in or near western or southern Germany. Many of the German-speaking people that came to North America did not come directly from what is now Germany. Many of them came here after spending time either from a few months to a few generations in other countries, such as Switzerland, England, Russia, Ireland, France and other countries

Jacob married Mary Unknown in 1677 in England. (Mary Unknown was born about 1654 in England and died after 1702 in Netherlands.)