Very informative takes indeed re our collective ancestral past from Uwe and Paul, and our resident pro Fred. But who let Jim Eggert back on the list? Somebody better find an anchor and tie him down before he slips away again and goes back to goofing off.
I suspect that FR is right in stating matter-of-factly that most emigrants from Germany (indeed Europe in general) were poor (beyond those who might have left for reasons of persecution in one vein or another), no doubt subsiding in ~to borrow from Thoreau~ quiet desperation - far far greater than those who might have been simply adventurous. I wouldn't be surprised if this amounted to as much as 90% (perhaps more) of all immigrants to the States. So no one should feel shorted to find that their family comes from such simple origins. Let us recall too that the great majority of famous figures we collectively read about in our history books - going back through most of recorded history - came from such humble beginnings to boot.
Now the study and analysis of the ways of early German farm life is all good of course, but my goal is to push past this intermediate agricultural phase of German history and get back to the days of my earliest ancestors, Hans the heathen, and Bruno the barbarian. It's been said that back in earliest of the early censuses (previous to the Dead Sea scrolls) their lot in life left almost all of them to be simply termed (and thus recorded as) "tribesman" [would that be Stammann, or Stamm-mann, hmmm?]. All but a the major domos of course. Sooner or later one of these often forgotten texts is bound to surface to prove my point.
Jb