The Story of One Family's Journey From the Palatinate to America. . . While the people of the Palatinate Region in Germany were suffering through war and oppression during the 1600s and 1700s, North America was offering farmland and freedom to those who worked for it. In America, it was not about who you were but what you could do. The stage was set for a massive immigration to "The Promised Land." Among those coming to America was young Johannes Peter Dietrich, the founder of a prolific Deatrick/Dedrick line in the new world. Peter's journey would take him across the ocean to Philadelphia,...