Texas German Dialect Project -- Follow Up Thank you to everybody who liked, shared, commented, and sent in scans of letters and postcards written in Texas from the 1850s through WWI. We are thrilled that this project is receiving so much attention. One of the more interesting side questions that came up as a result of this post, was a comment about the Wends & Wendis(c)h culture. The Wends, or Sorbs, as they are more commonly called now, are West Slavic people who arrived in the Baltics (then German-speaking) and what is now Germany in the first millennium AD. They preserved their unique culture and language through the centuries, and even today Sorbs live in Saxony and Brandenburg, a region called Lusatia, or Lausitz, in Germany. Their national dress is distinct, and can still be seen during cultural and religious holidays and celebrations. In the 1850s, significant numbers of Sorbs emigrated to the US, and settled in the German-speaking parts of Texas. They founded the towns of Serbin and Giddings. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/wends (fb)

Do you have old German letters, postcards, or notes, preferably from the 19th century through 1914, that were written in Texas? If yes, we would love to receive a high-resolution scan in pdf, png or jpg format. We are helping the Texas German Dialect Project to collect, archive, and preserve documents for the "Auswandererbriefe aus Nordamerika" ('Immigrant letters from North America) project, a public, online archive, which can assist with transcribing and translating the letters. Email us at info@gahmusa.org. We hope to hear from you! (fb)