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The article presents the author's views on a research focused on analyzing the Amish people and their societies. Topics discussed includes use of the U.S. tourism and culture by the Amish people, their identity as North Americans in Mexico and how Mennonite scholars have viewed Amish as fellow Anabaptists.

About 20% of adults are persistently colonized with S. aureus in the anterior nares. Host genetic factors could contribute susceptibility to this phenotype. The objective of this study was to determine whether the phenotype of persistent S. aureus colonization aggregates in family members who live in different households. Healthy adults and their eligible same sex siblings who lived in different households were recruited from the Old Order Amish of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. All participants had two cultures of the anterior nares to determine if they were persistently colonized with S. aureus. Three hundred and ninety eight participants finished the study, of whom 166 were index cases and 232 were siblings of index cases. Eighteen per cent (71/398) of all participants and 17% (29/166) of index cases were persistently colonized with S. aureus. Twenty two per cent (8/36) of siblings of persistently colonized index cases were persistently colonized with S. aureus compared to 17% (34/196) of siblings of non-persistently colonized index cases, yielding a prevalence rate ratio of 1.28 (95% CI: 0.65-2.54, p = 0.64) and sibling relative risk of 1.25 (95% CI: 0.65-2.38, p = 0.51). The heritability of persistent colonization was 0.19±0.21 (p = 0.31). Persistent S. aureus colonization does not strongly aggregate in Amish family members in different households and heritability is low, suggesting that environmental factors or acquired host factors are more important than host genetic factors in determining persistent S. aureus colonization in this community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Because they are a closed founder population, the Old Order Amish (OOA) of Lancaster County have been the subject of many medical genetics studies. We constructed four versions of Anabaptist Genealogy Database (AGDB) using three sources of genealogies and multiple updates. In addition, we developed PedHunter, a suite of query software that can solve pedigree-related problems automatically and systematically. Methods: We report on how we have used new features in PedHunter to quantify the number and expected genetic contribution of founders to the OOA. The queries and utility of PedHunter programs are illustrated by examples using AGDB in this paper. For example, we calculated the number of founders expected to be contributing genetic material to the present-day living OOA and estimated the mean relative founder representation for each founder. New features in PedHunter also include pedigree trimming and pedigree renumbering, which should prove useful for studying large pedigrees. Results: With PedHunter version 2.0 querying AGDB version 4.0, we identified 34,160 presumed living OOA individuals and connected them into a 14-generation pedigree descending from 554 founders (332 females and 222 males) after trimming. From the analysis of cumulative mean relative founder representation, 128 founders (78 females and 50 males) accounted for over 95% of the mean relative founder contribution among living OOA descendants. Discussion/Conclusions: The OOA are a closed founder population in which a modest number of founders account for the genetic variation present in the current OOA population. Improvements to the PedHunter software will be useful in future studies of both the OOA and other populations with large and computerized genealogies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The founding of the Old Order Amish Steering Committee provides an unusual opportunity to identify environmental factors that may pressure collectivities to formally organize. Amish communities, despite a normative stance antithetical to central authority and hierarchy, felt compelled to create a national organization as the best means of effectively articulating their views to a proliferating array of government bureaucracies. The Amish's perceived need to create the Steering Committee makes clear that the legal environment may be coercive independent of the substantive character of particular laws. The mere pervasiveness of government standards, codes, regulations, and programs forces collectivities subject to them to adopt bureaucratic structures. The Steering Committee's evolution confirms the pervasiveness and decisiveness of the legal infrastructure, features only sporadically appreciated in the organizational literature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the Swiss and German origins of the Amish Mennonites, the early history of the sect, its dissolution in Europe, and its survival in America. Survival in the New World is attributed to the perpetual sectarian conflict between the parental group and the subsect, the emergence of a consciousness of difference from the world—expressed in costume and other traditions, and community association and proximity never realized on the Continent on account of differing landholding systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the opposition of the members of the Amish division of the Mennonite faith on the swapping of eleven venerable little red schoolhouses to a brand a new $125,000 consolidated seat of learning in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They protested to the PWA-built structure because it signifies the modern age which they preferred to keep their children at home on the farm rather than letting the children attend the class.