Hello Roy, I think in one of your recent emails you were wondering about the colours of the Prussian flag. The answer is; two horizontal stripes, the upper one is black and the lower one is white. These colours together with the colours of the Hanseatic cities, white and red constitute the "old" German flag, i.e. black, white, red which was created in 1867 and changed in 1919 to black, red and gold. However, in 1922 it was decreed that ships should continue to use the black, white and red flag with an addition of black, red and gold. The other thing I want to mention is something I must admit I didn�t know either but since I looked it up I want to share with you what I learned. The old Prussian language (altpreußische Sprache) ceased to exist in the 17th century. It was the western branch of the Baltic family of indogermanic languages. Now that led me to the origin of the word Preußen. Well, there was a Baltic tribe called Prußen which lived between the rivers Weichsel and Memel. They resisted Christianity until they got conquered by the German knights (Deutschritter) in the 13th century. The Prußen mixed with the new settlers that came with the knights. Their name was modified to Preußen and used for all people living there and as of 1701 was used for the entire state of Preußen. Best regards, Henning. _______________________________________________ Westfalen-L mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.genealogy.net/mailman/listinfo/westfalen-l
