This book traces over three centuries of history of the descendants of a German-speaking immigrant couple, Conrad and Margaretha Hatt, who homesteaded, first in Lancaster Co., Pa. (1738), and then in Berks Co., Pa. (1749), where they named their farm Chestnut Hill. Some branches of their descendants remained on or near the family farm through the twentieth century, while others moved off at various points to homestead in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and California. The author compares these branches with one another in order to sort out the factors—social, economic, religious, and linguistic—that nudged their social development in subtly different directions. (508pp. illus. index. Author, 2011.)