Many residents of Lancaster County in southeastern Pennsylvania in the United States are members of conservative Christian group called Amish. They isolated themselves from the modern world by rejecting all modern inventions and using only technology of the 19th century. They speak a German dialect, known as Pennsylvania Dutch (from German Deutsch). On Sundays members of the church meet in each other's homes to celebrate a mass and to spend time together. They do not have church buildings.
Amish can be easily distinguished by their attire and style of living. The men wear broadbrimmed hats and do not shave they beard. The women wear bonnets, long full dresses with capes over the shoulders. No jewelry of any kind is worn, not even buttons. Amish are excellent farmers, but they refuse to use modern farm machinery. Generally they do not use gas and electricity and avoid all present time devices including bicycles and cars. They use scooters instead, drive horses and buggies. Hard work is their sense of life.
All the Amish are descendants of only 200 families that emigrated from Switzerland in the early 18th century. The Amish population in the United States is still growing, reaching almost 300,000. This is because most the families still have 6-7 children. It is required that the marriage is between the members of their church. When a person is baptized, he or she can marry only someone from the Amish community. Close family relationships within small communities mean that the gens that were present when their ancestors arrived to America still exist. Thanks to this, many Amish carry a special gene that gives them 10% longer life span compared to people who do not have this gene.
