I will resist writing the remainder in German, but Fred raises an
interesting point. I will raise it specifically for my own family. My
surname was apparently Riegel. We passed the bar (pun intended) about 1780,
but German apparently was spoken in the Ragle family all down the Blue
Ridge, across the Cumberland Gap, up through Kentucky, and into southern
Indiana, where my 2x GGF Peter Ragle settled first in Orange Co. around
Orleans, then in Daviess Co. "around" Raglesville in 1836. My GGF Alonzo
Ragle was born in 1837 and apparently spoke some German in his households
in Martin Co. and in eastern Kansas, where he went briefly in 1882. So
there are at least these generations involved: John [immigrant from the
Rhein Pfalz]->Jacob->Peter->Alonzo.
The question is: "how long did German normally persist in immigrant families?"
To generalize a bit, how long did French persist in the strongly french
areas of southwestern Indiana?
I know of distant Ragle relatives who settled south of Daviess County (e.g.
DuBois) in Indiana in areas that still celebrate some sort of "German Days"
-- is there a corresponding persistance of French culture around Terre
Haute and Vincennes?
My family has no known relatives in the very early Swiss settlements in
extreme southeastern Indiana, but one might ask similar questions about them.
And then, to drill back home in Daviess Co. what is the partition between
settlers of German origin and otherwise, wrt early, post-French, settlers.
What about the more modern settlers, including those of Mennonite (etc.)
origins?
John Ragle