Guys bear with me, but this stuff is SO interesting. The 20th Regiment of NY Volunteers were made up of members ot the NY Turngemeinde and their Civil War nickname was "The United Turner Rifles". So I did some digging to find out what THAT meant.
Here goes:
"Prior to 1848 no club or society for the promotion and pursuit of physical exercises in NYC existed.....the 1st society organized for this purpose was the NY Turngemeinde. Its organization took place on the 28th of November 1848, by chance, at a social meeting in Hoboken. The founders were mostly former members of Turner Societies in different parts of Germany, who had taken active part in the revolutionary movement of said year, to upset the monarchial institutions in Germany and who had to quit the land of their birth and seek refuge on this soil after that noble effort failed. On June 6, 1850 the Society moved to Beekman Street, near Nassau...
True to the traditional tendencies of the Turner Societies, from the days of Father Jahn (sic), the society not only put on its programme the development op physical strength, health, and so forth by means of physical training but it also made the development of the mental capacities, the fostering of sociability and last but not least, the propagation of progressive ideas on political, social and religious subjects, a part of its endeavors."
This is SOOOOO COOOOOL! Our ancesters were so into religious freedom! Remember we are also descended through Poppy, from French Heugenots - the Gerow line!!!!
It looks like we still have some pretty strong DNA running through our veins!!
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