How many Anabaptists were there?
Place-by-place counts (Bern, the 1711 trip, the Palatinate, the Jura, France, the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, America): Anabaptist population by place.
Counted numbers are rare before 1700 — Anabaptists were illegal and kept no public registers. Bold = an actual count.
| Year | Where | Number | What | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1525 | Zurich | roughly a dozen | the first adult baptisms | standard histories |
| 1530 | Emden | 100+ adults | baptized by Melchior Hoffman | Wikipedia |
| 1528–1571 | Bern | about 30 | documented executions | Swiss Mennonite Conference - Bernese Anabaptist History outline |
| 1600, 1650 | everywhere | no reliable count | ||
| 1671 | Bern → Palatinate | about 700 | driven out or fled | same |
| ~1700 | Netherlands | often-quoted ~160,000, thought too high; not verified | ||
| 1700s | Netherlands | fell about 83%; ~100 congregations closed | assimilation | lecture |
| 1711 | Bern → Netherlands | about 350 | Rhine exodus, four ships | Swiss chronology |
| 1717–1750 | to America | about 500 | the whole first wave of Amish | Wikipedia: Amish |
| 1776 | West Prussia | 12,190 people, 2,637 households, 533 surnames | full Mennonite census (counted here); Wiebe 62 households | 1776 Census of Mennonites in West Prussia |
| 1835 | South Russia | about 1,600 families, 72 colonies | Encyclopedia of Ukraine | |
| mid-1800s | to America | about 1,500 | second Amish wave | Wikipedia |
| 1914 | Russia | about 100,000 | Encyclopedia of Ukraine | |
| 1920 / 1952 | North America | 5,000 / 19,000 | Old Order Amish | Wikipedia (Young Center) |
| 2000 / 2026 | North America | 166,000 / 421,340 | Old Order Amish | same |
| 2015 | Netherlands | 7,230 members | Dutch Mennonite church | Wikipedia |
What it means: founding populations were tiny, which is why the same ancestors recur (Double ancestors). Two of the three streams are already traced almost completely: GRANDMA for the Low German Mennonites (GRANDMA database) and Gingerich & Kreider for the 18th-century Amish (Amish and Amish Mennonite Genealogies (Gingerich and Kreider)). The Swiss stream needs Bern’s handwritten lists (Bern Taeuferakten (Anabaptist files)).
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.