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Hetrick Families of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This page was last updated on 02/01/13
My name is Stephan Hetrick and I have been researching Hetrick families
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is a work in progress and will be
updated from time to time with new information. It should be noted that
there were several origins of this name in Philadelphia as well as
several spelling variations.
About ten years ago, I began researching my family name in the
Philadelphia area. My paternal lineage, in America, begins there.
As a starting point, I used the Philadelphia 1900 Census population of
Hetrick names and their variant spellings. I first validated what
was known to my family, still living in Philadelphia. With that as
a foundation, I began to researching family records prior to 1900.
In that process, I found there were several migrations of that surname
with variations in spelling into the Philadelphia area. Some of
the familial occurrences of the name did not remain in the City very
long. Other occurrences stayed and the numbers of related families
grew rapidly. Some elements of those families remain there to this
day.
I discovered that the original migrations of the name to America through
the Philadelphia and Baltimore areas was from two distinctly different
geographic origins; Germans from the Palatinate or Saxony and
Scotch-Irish from Northern Ireland or Scotland. In both cases, the
driving force appears to have been religious oppression at home and the
potential for better opportunities elsewhere.
Two separate German Palatinate immigrations to Berks, Dauphin, Lebanon
and Northumberland Counties occurred in the early 1700s. The
gathering point was Germantown, a section of Philadelphia. Those
families tended not to linger in Philadelphia but to move south or
westward via the Tulpehocken Road, which still exists, leading out of
Germantown. A very few members of these families removed to
Philadelphia.
Another German immigration to the area in the early 1700s was a group
known as Schwenkfelders, a religious sect from Silesia. This group
settled primarily in the region between Philadelphia and Allentown.
The group of interest settled primarily in Springfield and Flourtown,
Montgomery County, bordering Germantown, Philadelphia. A few of
those families eventually established homes in the City of Philadelphia.
There appears to have been several Scotch-Irish immigrations to the
Philadelphia and Baltimore areas throughout the 1700 and 1800s.
Some families did not remain in the area long and moved south or
westward. There appear to have been four or five families of
interest that remained in the City.
So, after all this time and research, I have learned that the more
immediate origin of my surname is Scotch-Irish rather than Germanic.
In the effort to narrow down the focus of my research, I have collected
quite a bit of information for lineages not directly mine in addition to
those that are.
For now, I am prepared to share
research regarding
William Hetrick [pdf] found
in the 1810 Philadelphia Census. To view some burial information
from this Hetrick family,
click here.
James
Hettrick [pdf]
is another Hetrick / Hettrick family found in the 1840 Philadelphia Census.
There is also a Mathew Hetrick
[pdf] or Hatrick found in
Philadelphia from 1799 to 1813. It has not been determined
whether or not there is any relationship between the three families. Another Hetrick family arrived in Philadelphia between 1880 and 1890. Ervin or Erwin Hetrick [pdf], and his family lived near the Port Richmond area and ran a boarding house, while the rest of the family appears to be involved in the cigar making industry. This family first appears in earlier census records, living in Bucks County near Montgomery and Lehigh Counties. In 1734 a religious group known as Schwenkfelders arrived in Philadelphia. One of the families with this group was Balthasar Heydrich [pdf] who settled in Montgomery County, bordering Germantown, Philadelphia. As the family grew, several groups remained in Montgomery County or moved into Bucks, Lehigh and Philadelphia Counties. The variations of the surname [e.g. Heydrich/Heydrick/Hedrich/Hetrich/Hetrick] spelling caused me to research this group.   |
