Anabaptist population by place
How many Mennonites and Amish lived in each place on the family’s routes, as counted or estimated. The overall timeline is in How many Anabaptists were there; this note goes place by place.
How to read it: bold = an actual count from a list or census. Italic = an estimate. “Families” and “households” are what the source says; multiply by about 4–5 for people. Müller page numbers refer to Müller - Geschichte der Bernischen Täufer (1895) (readable copy in Documents/Codex/2026-10-29/tr/outputs/mueller-1895/).
Summary
- The 1711 Rhine trip: 346 people left Bern, about 70 families plus single people; about 340 reached Amsterdam.
- Vistula delta: perhaps 1,000 in Danzig by the 1570s; 12,190 people (2,637 households) in the full 1776 Prussian census; about 13,000 by 1780.
- Bern to France: no total exists. It was a steady trickle over about 150 years, not one migration. Fixed points: about 60 families at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines c.1700, 9 families first at Montbéliard in 1709, barely 1,000 Anabaptists in all of France by 1780 (Séguy), and 880 people in France’s six Amish congregations in the 1890s.
Bern and the Emmental (the Ramseyer, Neuenschwander, Mast and Hochstetler homeland)
| Year | Number | What | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1535 | about 300 | Anabaptists in Lenzburg district (Aargau, then Bernese) alone | Müller p. 78 |
| 1528–1571 | about 30 | executions in Bern | 1571 Last Anabaptist execution in Bern |
| 1671 | about 700 | driven out to the Palatinate | Müller p. 195 |
| 1710 | 54 prisoners | deportation ship to America; 32 old and sick released at Mannheim, the other 22 freed at Nijmegen | Müller pp. 269, 278 |
| 1711 | 346 | the Rhine exodus (see below) | Müller pp. 308–313 |
No count of all Bernese Anabaptists was ever made. Most lived hidden, as the Ramseyers did at Eggiwil.
The 1711 Rhine trip
| Number | |
|---|---|
| Left Bern, 13 July 1711 | 346 people: 67 married men, 76 married women, 21 single men, 35 single women, 147 children; 21 of the adults were Reformed spouses |
| Families | about 70 married couples (67 husbands aboard; some wives travelled without their husbands), plus widows and single people |
| By boat | Emmentaler 89, Oberländer 68, Thuner 77, Neuenburger (the rest) |
| Left the boats on the way | 1 at Wangen, 5 at Basel, Hans Bürki +12 at Breisach, Samuel Reber +30 at Mannheim; 30 others boarded at Breisach |
| Reached Amsterdam, 3 August | about 340 |
| Settled (Müller’s summary, p. 321) | [[Groningen |
| Kampen in detail | 17 couples with 35 children, 3 widows with 7 children, 8 single people |
Full names: 1711 Rhine exodus - full passenger roster.
The Palatinate (where the 1671 refugees went)
| Year | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1671–72 | 643 people counted by the Dutch relief helpers (about 80 complete households plus widows, single people and divided families); the Swiss preachers reckoned about 100 more still in Alsace | Müller pp. 204–206 |
| January 1732 | 618 families in the Palatinate congregations (160 in one group, 458 in the 14 congregations “below Mannheim”) | Müller pp. 211–212 |
| 27 April 1744 | 244 households, 1,370 souls; the Elector ordered them cut to 200 households | Müller p. 208 |
| 1890s | Baden–Württemberg–Bavaria group: 1,014 souls in 15 congregations, “of Swiss origin” | Müller p. 213 |
The Jura (the Neuenschwander, Lehman and Sprunger route)
| Year | Place | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1540–70 | Péry, from the Bucheggberg | first families, by oral tradition: Gerber of Langnau, Nussbaum, Tanner | Müller p. 234 |
| 15 Dec 1716 | Corgémont | 6 families, 17 people all year (others came only for summer) | Müller p. 239 |
| 15 Dec 1716 | Péry and La Heutte | 3 families, 12 people | Müller p. 239 |
| 4 Aug 1724 | Péry and La Heutte | 16 families, 50 people from Schlosswil, Sumiswald, Langnau, Biglen, Höchstetten, Lauperswil, [[Trub | Trub]] |
| 22 Feb 1745 | Péry | 15 families | Müller p. 247 |
| 1745 | Courtelary–Cormoret | includes Johann Hochstettler of Schwarzenburg and Peter Neuenschwander of Langnau (see note below) | Müller p. 249 |
| 1832 | Münster district (Moutier) | 126 households, including 4 Sprunger families | Müller pp. 249–250 |
| 1888 | Bernese Jura | 722 souls in five congregations; Basel 43 baptized members; Binningen Amish about 280 | Müller p. 234 |
Müller says emigration from the Jura to America in 1819, 1833 and the early 1850s took more people than stayed behind (p. 248).
Peter Neuenschwander of Langnau, Courtelary 1745
Christopher’s ancestor Peter Neuenschwander (d. before 1791) is of Langnau and lived in the Jura. This 1745 entry could be him or a relative. Not verified: it needs the original list in the Porrentruy archive (Archives de l’ancien Évêché de Bâle).
France: Alsace, Montbéliard, Lorraine (the Hochstetler and Ramseyer route)
| Year | Place | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| c.1693–1700 | Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines | about 60 families from the Bern area under Jakob Ammann | Musée protestant |
| 1708 | Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines | a census of Anabaptists was taken; its total wasn’t found online | Val d’Argent heritage exhibit |
| 1709 | Montbéliard | 9 families, the first, at Clémont and Liebvillers | fr.wikipedia |
| 1712 | Alsace | all expelled by Louis XIV; no count found. Some went to Montbéliard, Salm, Lorraine, Zweibrücken (27 families there by 1732, Müller p. 212), and a few quietly returned | |
| 1780 | all France | ”barely a thousand” | Séguy (1977), via a Persée review |
| c.1789 | Alsace | about 4,500 (one source; others differ widely, so treat it as uncertain) | DHIALSACE encyclopedia (via search summary) |
| 1890s | France | six Amish congregations, “all of Bernese descent”, 880 souls; leaders include a Ramseier | Müller p. 213 |
So how many went from Bern to France? Nobody counted. People crossed a family at a time for about 150 years (1670s–1820s), often by way of the Palatinate or the Jura, and many moved on to America. The best estimate is Séguy’s: about 1,000 in all of France in 1780. A real count would need the Alsace and Montbéliard tenant lists that Séguy and Mathiot used (see Human tasks and blockers).
The Netherlands (the Dutch stream)
| Year | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1530 | about 300 baptized at Emden | 1530 Melchior Hoffman baptizes at Emden |
| c.1700 | 160,000 is often quoted but is thought to be too high | How many Anabaptists were there |
| 1711 | the Bern Swiss add about 340 | above |
| 1890s | 126 congregations, 25,232 baptized members, about 40,000 people | Müller p. 163 |
| 2015 | 7,230 members | Wikipedia |
The Vistula delta and Prussia (the Wiebe, Fieguth and Busenitz homeland)
| Year | Place | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1534 | Danzig | ”some Anabaptists” found in the city | Penner 1963 |
| 1547 | Danzig Werder | first Dutch settler contracts (Reichenberg, Scharfenberg, Landau) | Penner 1963 |
| 1569–70s | Danzig | about 1,000 Mennonites | Wikipedia |
| early 1600s | all Polish Prussia | nearly 15,000: a high estimate, treat with caution | Preservings |
| c.1660 | Danzig | about 47 heads of family (an incomplete list, after Schottland was razed in 1656) | Danzig census lists, via search summary |
| 1681 | Danzig suburbs | about 114 families on the city list; about 180 in all the suburbs | Danzig Mennonites 1681 |
| 1714 | Samland (East Prussia) | over 350 members, about 100 families, from the Vistula congregations | Preservings |
| 1724 | Tilsit (East Prussia) | about 160 families expelled for refusing military service | Preservings |
| 1776 | West Prussia | 12,190 people, 2,637 households, 533 surnames; the Wiebes alone were 62 households | 1776 Census of Mennonites in West Prussia |
| c.1780 | West Prussia | about 13,000, then the largest Mennonite population in the world | Mennonite Archives of Virginia |
| spring 1789 | to Russia | 228 families (Chortitza) | Mennonite Historian, Sept 1989 |
| 1789–1870 | to Russia | about 9,000 people in all | Wikipedia: Russian Mennonites |
Russia (the Wiebe and Fieguth stop before Nebraska)
| Year | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1835 | about 1,600 families in 72 colonies | Encyclopedia of Ukraine |
| 1870 | about 45,000 in Chortitza and Molotschna | Wikipedia |
| 1890s | Russian Poland 510, Austrian Galicia 450 souls | Müller p. 103 |
| 1914 | about 100,000 | Encyclopedia of Ukraine |
America
| Year | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1710 | the Maria Hope to Pequea, Pa.: 94 passengers, 40–50 of them Mennonites | 1710 Pequea settlement study |
| 1717–1750 | about 500 Amish, the whole first wave | Wikipedia: Amish |
| 1700s | about 5,000 Mennonites and Amish among all German immigrants | anabaptists.org |
| mid-1800s | about 1,500 Amish, the second wave | Wikipedia |
| 1874 onward | about 15,000 Russian Mennonites settle in Kansas (and Nebraska) | Müller p. 370 |
| 1890s | about 140,000 American Mennonites | Müller p. 372 |
Still to find
- The 1708 Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Anabaptist census total (Archives départementales du Haut-Rhin) task/human
- Séguy, Les Assemblées anabaptistes-mennonites de France (1977): the 18th-century counts for Alsace, Montbéliard and Lorraine task/human
- Courtelary–Cormoret 1745 list in Porrentruy: is Peter Neuenschwander of Langnau our ancestor? task/human
- A Vistula delta count between 1600 and 1776 (Mannhardt; Klassen, A Homeland for Strangers) task/ai
Record compiled 31 October 2026.
About this research
Supporting documentation is linked throughout. This project is an exercise in AI-assisted research and development, and I haven’t manually verified every link or conclusion. All transcriptions and translations of Swiss parish records were made with AI, and their accuracy should be treated accordingly.