The majority of those colonist families came on floats called "Ulmer Schachtel" by the river Danube travelling about two or three weeks from the German Imperial town of Ulm, where they were called to gather mostly from the Imperial estates in Lorraine, Alsace, Rhineland, and the Electorate of the Palatinate (German: Pfalz). There were also some families who came from other parts of Southwest Germany, mostly from County of Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, Swabia, Bohemia and Moravia, as well as from some decades earlier established colonist villages in Hungary administered by the Habsburg Monarchy, like in the Counties of Tolna, Pest, Buda and Baranya. They all were given some food, cattle, tools and instruments for living and lately some lands, all this for free, as it was a state-organized colonization.