My fondest memory of true inclusion in the US: during my student exchange in Madison WI, my best friend was an asian girl with Korean roots, Jenny Bauknecht. She hadn't even heard of the fabulous German manufacturer of washing-machines😂😂🎉❤
@SchmulKrieger
Жыл бұрын
How did a Korean come to the name Bauknecht?
@dasmaurerle4347
Жыл бұрын
@@SchmulKrieger if i remember correctly, her Korean mom married an American bloke with that name in the 70s.
@Enkaptaton
Жыл бұрын
And where does the very East German first name come from?
@dasmaurerle4347
Жыл бұрын
@@Enkaptaton 😂😂😂👍...de Jenny, dr Mike und dr Ricö...
@manuel0578
10 ай бұрын
What does that have to do with inclusion?
@JohnMckeown-dl2cl
Жыл бұрын
Another really good video. My family was somewhat mixed in this regard. My great uncle changed but my grandmother did not. My uncle George went from Georg Schade to George Shade to "anglicize" his name to be more in line with the community. My grandmother kept her first name since Christina was a common English name and she took her husband's name when she got married. I remember my grandmother telling me that there was a big wave of name changes in the German community during WWI and WWII for obvious reasons. I took a couple of trips to Ellis Island in the past since I lived just a few hours drive away. I was lucky enough to trace three out of four branches of the family tree there and found entry dates, ship names and departure ports. One thing I noticed is that since the records were hand written is that sometimes the writing of the immigration officer were not as clear as the records that get shown as examples. Many were written in cursive and the individual styles varied. A, O and E can get hard to tell apart as written. Also foreign accents were commonly left out (like an umlaut in German or la cedille in French). Keep up the good work.
@joeaverage3444
Жыл бұрын
I'm German and live in Germany, but a relative from our family fled to the U.S. after the German Revolution of 1848 and slightly altered his last name to make it more English sounding, as well as changing his first name from Eduard to Edward, probably to blend in.
@willemdubbeldam9285
Жыл бұрын
I am positively amazed every time by the topics covered. Apart from the interesting topics, each topic is worked out in a great way. Both visually and in terms of documentation and resources. I am not German or American, but still, every video is interesting to watch. Hats off!!! 👍
@MacBline
Жыл бұрын
Spelling of german names is not really easy even for other Germans. I mean Schmidt/Schmitt/Schmied/Schmid etc is a VERY common name, but has like dozens of different spellings depending of region and even religion. So officials in Hamburg writing down a name from Bavaria were very likely to get the spelling wrong.
@walkir2662
Жыл бұрын
Meier/Meyer/Mayer/Maier... yeah. And that'S not even going into dialects, I can easily imagine Hamburg or Bremen messing up Bavarian names. But that doesn't turn Schmidt into Smith.
@TarikDaniel
Жыл бұрын
True, but this is a common issue in many languages.
@krautsky
Жыл бұрын
And it gets even worse when one takes into acount shifts in spelling within German speaking communities. Think oe to ö, ae to ä, ue to ü which even Genealogy apps get wrong and do not recognize as the same name. Or the shift from ch to k, ck to k, y to ie or i.
@jensschroder8214
Жыл бұрын
Schröder and Schröter. The name Schneider has the same meaning. to cut off
@peterkoller3761
Жыл бұрын
@@jensschroder8214 this is a completely different issue. Pfister and Bäcker/Becker are also the same by meaning, and so is Jäger/Waidmann/Weidmann etc etc
@jehib8533
Жыл бұрын
You also have to remember that family names were still sort of fluent in many European countries in the 19th century and often changed slightly from generation to generation (and sometimes even between siblings), exchanging letters, dropping or adding them, or even change parts of the name. Family names in Germany were formally fixed from 1875, but there was still scope for changes, especially in situations where documents weren't checked properly. So many people would give the variation of the name they themselves were using at the time they were emigrating, which wasn't necessarily the same as the rest of their families. My grandmother once showed me a box of family documents, and among them was what was probably my great-grandfather's birth certificate from the 1870s which showed the new name which I still have today and included the old name (which had the same first part/syllable, but a different second one) in brackets.
@manub.3847
Жыл бұрын
In the paternal side of my family, the surname was sometimes spelled with "double a" and often not. According to the family tree, even people from the neighboring town with "doppel a" married into the family without "doppel a".
@liilaa.
Жыл бұрын
Growing up in Germany I had never heard of the Ellis Island myth before. I was taught at school that coming to the United States, immigrants had changed their names on purpose in order to be more integrated into society, not that these name changes happened by accident or due to ignorance at immigration. Thank you for explaining this common misconception that I wasn’t even aware of until now, it’s really interesting to me :)
@KaisaKylakoski
Жыл бұрын
In Finland surname became a legal requirement 1920, which is also when wife and husband were required to share the husband's surname for the first time. Before that there were different traditions in different parts of the country: in the east family names were used already in 1500's and in the west patronymics were enhanced with farm names which changed with a move. Some of the farm names or otherwise adopted familynames were in Swedish and when Finnish became a more powerful language (it had always been tha majority language) by the end of 1800's the family names were translated to Finnish or new ones adopted. This all is often difficult to understand for new genealogists, who think that current name conventions are "traditional".
@SwissPGO
Жыл бұрын
Belgian culture is different: Women carry on their name after marriage. And we had to explain this to swiss authorities when we married here, because under Swiss law, my wife would have lost her name at the time we got married. I find it more respectful to keep surnames intact after marriage.
@ppd3bw
Жыл бұрын
Speaking of adopting farm names, this was a common practice in northern Germany as well. The Prussians then required the husband's name to be used, but people stayed with their traditional practices for long and created confusing "Nenn-Namen" like "Müller genannt Meier". So if you encounter a Bertha Müller, genannt Meier, geborene Schmidt among your ancestors, you know things get really complicated 🙂
@andeekaydot
Жыл бұрын
@@ppd3bw this was , and partially is, still the case not only in the North of Germany. Farm names or House names are still used in other more rural parts of the country. It is not a registered or official name anymore, but everyone uses it, and even your mail with it in your address will be delivered correctly. So you are gonna be called after the name the house has, in which you are living. If you move elsewhere, you lose that name and will be called by your family name again. I think that is where the thesaurus "Hausname" for "Familienname" or "Nachname" derives from.
@srbrod
Жыл бұрын
Family lore was always that our name was originally Brodt and was changed to be less German. But, I found local church records in Germany and the name was always Brod. It is actually still the common spelling in the part of Germany they came from. Doing research, family names changed over time even in Germany.
@florianlipp5452
Жыл бұрын
I just looked up the most popular boys' names in the US and Germany. And the similarities are really shocking. The top 10 in both countries are pretty similar. Shows how globalized we have really become. Noah, Metteo, Leo/Leon, Liam, Elijah/Elias are on both lists. (Same with girls' names: Emma, Mia, Sophia, Lina/Luna are top 10 in both countries).
@EinDeutscherPatriot620
Жыл бұрын
And that is exactly why I won't give my children names easy to translate into English. It's just the death of our cultural names
@olivenkranz
Жыл бұрын
@@EinDeutscherPatriot620 nennst du sie dann Siegfried und Brünhild?
@EinDeutscherPatriot620
Жыл бұрын
@@olivenkranz Siegfried ist mein zweiter Vorname, ha! Ich heiße Jürgen Siegfried von Schumacher. Mein Sohn wird Widukind Liudulf von Schumacher oder Diederik Freerk von Schumacher heißen. Ich bin Sächse, also möchte ich, dass sie sächsische Namen haben. Für meine Tochter entweder Brünnhilfe oder Brünnhilde Antje von Schumacher.
@scofield3467
Жыл бұрын
@@EinDeutscherPatriot620 Wenn du möchtest, dass sie in der Schule gemobbt werden, dann nur zu.
@EinDeutscherPatriot620
Жыл бұрын
@@scofield3467 Ja, werde ich. Wenn sie unkultiviert sein und kein Verständnis haben wollen, müssen sie das schaffen.
@eagle1de227
Жыл бұрын
I've once been contacted by a person from the us searching for relatives here in Germany due to my last name. Eventually it turned out we're not related but i still kept contact with this man. Genealogy is a very fascinating topic.
@danwylie-sears1134
Жыл бұрын
I had no idea that name changes were imagined to have mostly happened at Ellis Island. My mother's German-American ancestors anglicized their last name (by one letter) during WWI, after having used the original version for at least a generation in the US.
@DramaQueenMalena
Жыл бұрын
It's still not uncommon that people are called the "local" variant of your name. A man called Charles would be called Carlo in Italy or Karl in Germany. I am Marie in French speaking regions, Mary in English countries and Maria everywhere else. I even introduce myself according to the language of the people I meet. It's the same name. Back in the days when there weren't many 'exotic' names it was normal. Kings, Queens, Popes where called differently. Papa Giovanni Paolo, Johannes Paul, Juan Pablo, John Paul, Jean-Paul, Jan Pawel.... Jeanne d'Arc, Giovanna d'Arco, Joan of Arc, Johanna von Arc....
@mr-vet
Жыл бұрын
My wife is from Ecuador…she was given a French name at birth (Jacqueline)… (no, her parents weren’t French)…
@stevengehring8890
Жыл бұрын
Great video; very informative! My family immigrated to the US c.1870 and apparently the spelling of our last name was very fluid. Based on tombstones in the church graveyard where many of my ancestors are buried, my great-great grandmother maintained the German spelling (Göring), my great-grandfather used the spelling my branch of the family uses to this day (Gehring), but his brother used another variation (Goering). Two family legends have persisted as to why the changes: 1. It happened at immigration (at the New Orleans port of immigration rather than Ellis Island) and 2. There were so many Görings that immigrated at the same time that it was to avoid confusion with the mail. Neither now seems likely and the real reason will likely never be known.
@ChiaraBells
Жыл бұрын
I obviously cannot tell you the real reason but I can tell you this: If there is no letter ö available, Germans will substitute it with oe, so that is where that variation comes from.
@clairegrube9545
Жыл бұрын
Just be happy they changed it, or you would be named like one of the most famous Nazis
@carlkolthoff5402
Жыл бұрын
Our family name was probably spelled and pronunced a bit different in the 1600s when my first German ancestor arrived in Sweden. This is clearly visible today, as different branches of the family spells the name differently depending on what country they went to. Kolthoff, Kalthoff, Kultenhof, Koltoft, etc. They all seem to have common origin. In my experience, the name we have today sounds foreign both to Swedes and Germans 😅
@jinsvunsolved
Жыл бұрын
Kolt ist Plattdeutsch bzw. Niederdeutsch und bedeutet Kalt.
@carlkolthoff5402
Жыл бұрын
@@jinsvunsolved thank you! I didn't know this before.
@tillposer
Жыл бұрын
The emigration from Hamburg is actually shown and documented in the Ballinstadt Auswanderermuseum in the Hamburg harbour, where parents of the old emigration terminals are now the location of the museum. It underscores your talking points and shines a light on the whole process the emigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe had to go through before getting on the ships.
@kathyschmidt3079
Жыл бұрын
My parents did a lot of genealogy research in the 80s and 90s but back then had no way really to trace the family of my maternal grandfather. He was from a German family who lived in the Croatian/Hungarian border area and came to Germany during WWII with no paperwork at all. For a long time, we only knew the names of my great-grandparents but nothing else. No dates, no exact location, nothing. Through some interviews with my mother before she died and thanks to digitalisation of Hungarian and Croatian church records, I was now able to trace back a further 4 generations...with the help of Google translate since I don't speak Hungarian. My grandfather's last name as he spelled it was Geiss...but I've also found Geisz and Gaisz, depending on who did the entry into the church records. Since my ancestors were farmers and simple workers, most of them probably couldn't read or write and the officials just spelled the names as they thought they were spelled. And first names also vary...it makes it very hard to find someone but also very rewarding when you actually do and can connect dots that seemed completely out of your reach before.
@eastfrisianguy
Жыл бұрын
So true. I am engaged in genealogy and have found passenger lists from Bremerhaven (part of the family emigrated to the USA in 1923, first via New York to Nebraska and then 9 years later to Iowa) - and there I have found many spelling mistakes, but actually by the responsible persons of the shipping company. Our village is called "Flachsmeer" (I also grew up there) and was written down "Flaxmeir" or something like that, the officials on Ellis Island really couldn't do anything for that.
@ankem4329
Жыл бұрын
Have a nice sunday, Ashton. Your video just contributes to mine 👋🤓
@dotter702
Жыл бұрын
My mother’s father came to the US from Germany in the early 1900’s through Baltimore. Somewhere along the line, he was asked what his name was. His name was Anthony, which he pronounced in his German dialect as “Antony.” When he arrived in the US, his official first name and middle initial had become “Anton E.”
@Lysandra-8
Жыл бұрын
Anton is a male name in Germany, Anthony not
@MrsStrawhatberry
Жыл бұрын
Anthony or Antony are not used in German, in general words or letters with „y“ are extremely rare. Usually „y“ would be replaced with „ie“ or „i“ or left out completely. The German version of this name is Anton. You might have mixed something up, either his name was always Anton or they changed it into Anthony when he moved to the US.
@dagmarszemeitzke
Жыл бұрын
My father came from Eastprussia. In Villingen he meet my mother. She was the leader of the "Gewerkschaftsjugend" (youth of the labor union) and he was the leader of the "Flüchtlingsjugend" (jouth of the refugees) both youth groups made many things together. There they get known each other. My acestors came from Eastprussia and from Baden (Black Forest) My family tree is complete for 5 generations, thanks to my grandmother who take maryage certificates from her parents and her parents in law with on her escape from Pillau. From my mothers Side the oldest was born in 1777 and I also know the names of his parents
@BlueberryDragon13
Жыл бұрын
Why are you proud for knowing your family tree?
@dagmarszemeitzke
Жыл бұрын
@@BlueberryDragon13 Why Not?
@ClausWawrzinek
Жыл бұрын
When I moved to the United States around 1984 at the age of 24, I was tempted to change at least my last name. Over time I realized that most people just use my first name anyway because my last name is too hard to figure out. In the early years most people initially mis-pronounced my first name. It seems that in recent years most people are able to pronounce “Claus” properly without prompting them. I am quite happy now to not have changed any of my names.
@EinDeutscherPatriot620
Жыл бұрын
Woher kommen Sie aus? Ich bin in den USA geboren, aber ich bin Deutscher Amerikaner 😂
@LeilaDRalph
Жыл бұрын
My name is impossible to pronounce for foreign people. Especially when coming from a country with a non-latin based language. My real name is "Ulrike". I´m so used to my asian colleagues calling me something like "Uhik" or "Uchik". XD My last name also doesn´t help much so they just stick trying to pronounce my first name. My parents definitly didn´t think of giving us names that can be translated well. They were born and raised in the same village as generations before them and my siblings and I were the first to move away. So we all were given old german names. I sometimes think of getting a nickname like a lot of asians do when moving to a foreign country. (They often just call themselves "Sally" or something easy pronouncable like that.) But I really like my name and my "real" nickname is "Ulle" which is a little bit easier to say for english speaking people but still kind of impossible for asians.
@Johnny-701
Жыл бұрын
Thanks for the research! I think we even got taught in English class in Germany that names of immigrants were changed on Ellis island. 🤷♂️ My guess regarding the name is Max.
@TypeAshton
Жыл бұрын
Max is a great name... BUT the kid across the street has it and we were afraid it might be a touch too confusing. 😉
@darleneh608
Жыл бұрын
I'm an amateur genealogist since age 20 (I'm 65 now) and how you've described the name situation for immigrants is exactly right in every detail. That said, a few things to add. When I was a little girl, the old people (my grandparents' age and older) would get together at family gatherings and tell all of us little kids that our family name back in the old country (what is now Germany) would have been our name with "von" in front of it. And then they'd laugh and laugh. We kids ate that stuff up and you'll still find people swearing that the story is true. It's a joke, folks. They were pulling our legs. Adding the von in front of a name is a way that the nobility was identified. My people were many things, but they were not nobility, and your people probably weren't, either. There was no such thing as standardized spelling until very, very recently, so your ancestor's name was spelled many different ways by many different people. Essentially, whichever way they thought it should be spelled, based on their maybe imperfect hearing, their own experience or inexperience with the name before, you name it. Old German handwriting is really difficult to read. It's cursive handwriting, but a lot of the rules for how letters were formed are completely different than they are today. And some people's handwriting was clear and precise and other people's handwriting was a mess. I'm sure plenty of the name changes happened just sort of accidentally.
@JustClaude13
Жыл бұрын
Or, as Peter Lorre said in Beat The Devil, O'Hara was a common name among Germans emigrating to Argentina after the war. Sometimes people changed their name for political or reasons.
@conniebruckner8190
Жыл бұрын
A very enjoyable video. I too had heard the myth and so glad you cleared that up. My father's family name has different spellings within the same country (Netherlands) because of who wrote the name at time of registry or baptism. Some have h, some left off the "de" part. So...guessing names you might have chosen ( BTW; we did the same when expecting a child, trying to find one that would fit in 3 languages!) Tobias, Elias, Martin, Peter, Thomas, Michael, (
@nobodx
Жыл бұрын
Michael is a good guess - a) because that's also my name ;P b) its a common name across most (all?) christian languages
@patrickhanft
Жыл бұрын
I was not aware, that it was a common assumption about name changes, that they happened during registration at immigration. I would have assumed that changing your name is always a big decision just as the decision to live in another country, so you would have made it with consideration, often when really understanding the impact that a name change could have within the new environment you are trying to settle, but also when you already have started to learn the language of your new country and when you have started to better understand what kind of name change would be appropriate. So I would have assumed that a name change would often happen later with the first born generation than with the last foreign born generation. Interesting to see, that there are still many other ways or reasons.
@cynic7049
Жыл бұрын
Yes, and here in Sweden that was always the assumption about our immigrants. Svensson changed themselves to Swanson not by any clerical error, that is a very prevalent view of it here. Or in the case of my relatives that moved (almost all of my grandfathers siblings did while he and his twin brother inherited the farm in Sweden and stayed) they just cut away one s and become Anderson.
@swanpride
Жыл бұрын
There is this scene in An American Tail in which "Tanja" is changed to "Tilly" by the immigration officers, but since the familiy is using their own names after it, I always found the notion a little bit strange. It is also the only instance I heard about this myth, but then, I am not from the US.
@drewner778
Жыл бұрын
Not everyone considers changing their family name quite as earnestly as one might think. A friend of mine was born in the Middle East, but when he was young his family relocated to the U.S. to avoid the ravages of war. Over a quarter of a century later when he was made a naturalized citizen, the official asked him if he would like to change his name at this time. After considering this option for just a moment, he responded, Clark Kent.
@erikthehalfabee6234
Жыл бұрын
Just a compliment for the wide range of topics this year.
@ekalenak
Жыл бұрын
My grandmother came in through Ellis Island, but my grandfather came through (I think) Baltimore. Your video gave me a lot of ideas on how to research their journeys. My grandmother came from what is now Slovakia and left from Hamburg. My grandfather came from what is now Western Ukraine but what was then part of Poland. His immigration passage is somewhat harder to find.
@Bioshyn
Жыл бұрын
In my Job in Germany i have a lot to do with people of Russian ancestry, they sometimes have 3 different documents with 3 different spellings of their name, Eugen and Ewgeni or Wladimir and Waldemar are the same names for example. The end of a name like Vitali or Sergei can be y i or ij for example. x can be ks, simply because some letters don't exist in the German or Russian alphabet cyrillic has extra letters for the tsch and ch sound for example which would be probably a j and k sound in englisch.
@franhunne8929
Жыл бұрын
Same ... you do not accidentally deal with Spätaussiedler?
@andbelov
Жыл бұрын
The official Latin spelling of my first name changed from Andrey to Andrei over the course of time because the Russian foreign ministry adopted new latinization rules at some point. I wonder how more complex names have changed.
@SchmulKrieger
Жыл бұрын
Those aren't Russian, those are Germans that got russified in the Soviet Union, they have German ancestry.
@SchmulKrieger
Жыл бұрын
@@andbelov the Bolsheviks changed almost the whole Cyrillic Alphabet. A lot of diphthongs disappeared and even their letters for.
@andbelov
Жыл бұрын
@@SchmulKrieger what kind of diphtongs are you talking about? The Russian spelling reform abolished the letters i, ѣ and ѳ, which were replaced by и, е and ф, respectively. Also some spelling rules were changed, and that was it.
@oakld
Жыл бұрын
My grandmother was born Müller and there are actually also variations of writing this name here over the border, like MIller or Miler. We also wanted our kids to have international names, but somehow our son ended up being Jiří. That would be one of the most difficult names for foreigners, but it's technically George in English, or often just "Jerry".
@agn855
Жыл бұрын
Were the German spelling of *Georg* in my region of Germany has been influenced by the time it was occupied by the French. So my uncle was named "Schorsch".
@brittakriep2938
Жыл бұрын
@@agn855 : With exeption of ,Erdbeerschorsch' ( Erzbischof in a joke) the name Georg is in southern Germany mostly spoken ,Schorsch'
@karinland8533
Жыл бұрын
Da gibt es noch mehr Varianten Joschi oder auch Girgl
@butenbremer1965
Жыл бұрын
Yeah - Happy 50k subbies to you! Glückwunsch 🥰 !!
@ShakaCthulu
Жыл бұрын
Great videos. I’m a “Miller”. My first German-American ancestor, Hermann Mueller, emigrated to the Germanna Colony in Virginia from Freudenberg, a little town in NRW Germany. This was pre-Revolutionary War. Hermann Mueller soon became Harmon Miller. I’d like to visit Freudenberg one day, it looks cozy.
@ballagh
Жыл бұрын
When my uncle moved to northern Norway he found it curious that the phone book in his town had a number of Armstrong’s when he expected to be the only one. It turned out some Norwegian migrants to the states had taken on an anglicised version of their name (eg Amundson or Arnesen) but when some of the family returned to Norway they ended up keeping Armstrong.
@mariepierrenarr7784
Жыл бұрын
My Great-Great-Grandfather, with french Hugenotte ancestry actually germanized my mother's maiden name, because 19th century Eastern Frisians, had trouble to pronounce "Voisin" to "Wosing". *First edit: Eastern Frisians Second edit: After Eastern Frisia had been a French department in the napoleonic era, plus being part of Prussia afterwards, anti french sentiments, have been very pronounced at the time of the name change. Now when I think of it, that might have been an even bigger factor for the name change. For all I know, it had been voluntary nonetheless.
@hermannschaefer4777
Жыл бұрын
Hugenottes had several immigration waves, starting around 1550. They often changed their name by simply translating (french berger became Schäfer) or just pronouncing the name in a German way. So quite a bunch of "Berger" in Germany are in fact frz. berger = Schäfer. But in recent centuries they often kept their names including French accents, like the quite common surname "André". It is also common to alter the foreign names just a bit to make it "German", not only with French names. The common surnames Bak, Bonk, Bunk eg. are all variants of the original Eastern European name spelled "Bąk". German register offices (Standesamt) often changed the names to what they understood or omitted letters, like Czech name Szyszka became Szyska, Syska, Liskar(!), etc. You sometimes need quite some creativity to get the right name..
@BlissLovePeace
Жыл бұрын
Hello, fellow Huguenot!
@bragiboddason4304
Жыл бұрын
I find the history of the Huguenots extremely exciting but also very dramatic. And although "only" about 40,000 Huguenots fled from France to "Germany" (more precisely: to one of the many German territories), they still left clearly recognizable traces in German history. Especially in Prussia and Berlin. Learning a little more about the Huguenots is definitely worthwhile for any history buff.
@hermannschaefer4777
Жыл бұрын
@@bragiboddason4304 They went to the places that offered freedom of religion - or at least some kind of acceptance towards different christian varieties. Those were Preußen (Prussia), Hessen (Hesse) and Kurpfalz (Palatinate). Latter became later catholic again and the then catholic rulers enforced a counter-reformation, esp. after the Nine Years' War. So many religious refugees moved on, either to America or to northern parts of Germany. And this kept on quite for a time, so immigrants from the Palatinate area are a quite distinctive German group in the US, eg. many Amish people still speak Pennsylvania Dutch, which is more or less just the dialect of the southern Kurpfalz. Many of them may have huguenotish roots, but also Calvinistic, German Lutheran or other protestant origins. Those areas were quite a European melting pot with refugees from many then catholic countries (Austria, Spain, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Bohemia, ..)
@SchmulKrieger
Жыл бұрын
The word Hugenotte is a German one and means Eidgenosse nowadays.
@haukemurr3455
Жыл бұрын
Highly enlightening. Thank you very much!
@joannajaworska0000
Жыл бұрын
I love how informative your films are! I am an expat tollin Germany as well. Though, as my homeland is its neighbour and through the history we were (unwillingly) under the influence of german culture, I hadn't such a culture shock when moving to Germany as you did. I even spoke the language fluently since learning it at school. Still, my son got a name without typically polish letters, quite common in Germany and known for Poles.
@maikotter9945
Жыл бұрын
Deutschland ... dichter bei den Polen! = Germany ... closer to the Poles!
@minnaerd4412
Жыл бұрын
German orthography got standardized just after 1850. So last names before that could be spelled differently, even in the same family, in the same place, depending on the person who was writing the (church) birth register.
@isana788
Жыл бұрын
this is so interesting. the same happened in my region. i come from the ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet), which was created around 100-150 years ago by immigrants from poland. my parents still remember that the old people all spoke polish. the surnames here are almost all modified from polish, such as Lewandowski, Sokolowski or Wachowski.
@walkir2662
Жыл бұрын
LOL, and i thought my "it feels like every 4th surname ends in -ski" goes too far.
@gluteusmaximus1657
Жыл бұрын
Not to forget Lukas Podolski !
@isana788
Жыл бұрын
@@gluteusmaximus1657 hahaha yes
@DarkDodger
Жыл бұрын
My family's last name is actually a double name, so two names connected by a hyphen. This is fairly common nowadays, but I remember quite well twenty, thirty years ago when double names started to come in fashion, people would sometimes give my mother dirty looks because they thought she was some kind of feminist amazon who had insisted on keeping her maiden name (which was looked down upon by conservative people) - except she didn't. Apparently, some 200 or so years ago my great-great-however-many-greats-grandfather married a woman. Happens to the best of us, what can you do. Naturally, she took his name. That woman had a brother, however, and when that brother died in the war, and great-great-grandpappy's father in law was facing the very real possibility that his family name would end with him, my ancestor decided that he wasn't okay with that and slapped his wife's maiden name onto his name with a hyphen. So now, and for quite a long time, my family has had a double name made up of two fairly common German last names. That's why I'm not comfortable sharing it on the internet though, the two world wars weren't kind on my family and now the number of people with my last name is so small, it's actually super easy to find me with it. Not an emigration story, but hopefully still interesting.
@TypeAshton
Жыл бұрын
That is REALLY interesting actually. I don't think I have known anyone with that kind of lineage where it happened that long ago. I found out more recently that my family's last name is probably not our "original" last name. My father's family comes from a long line of tenant farmers. It turns out that in the 1700's in Germany, our ancestor took the name of the farm/famer that he worked for because it had more "clout" and it has been changed ever since.
@oneukum
Жыл бұрын
In fact the idea that a name is something set in stone is pretty new. Adapting it to another language was common. Queen Marie- Antoinette of France for example was christened " Maria Antonia". They thought of a name as a word like any other to be translated when confronted with a foreign language.
@dzmitry_k
Жыл бұрын
I'm from a mixed Belarusian-Ukrainian family, and my name is written differently in the 3 languages of these countries. So, the name I'd be using in English or Portuguese would be different depending on how we met. If it's professional connection, I'll use the name in the documents (that happens to be Belarusian). If we met through a hobby, there's high chance I'll be using Ukrainian one. And if a Russian speaker introduced me, I'd use the Russian version.
@TypeAshton
Жыл бұрын
Names are SUCH an interesting thing. For us it is less about spelling and more variation with pronunciation. Jonathan, for example, never really corrects anyone if they pronounce his name the "German" way with more of a "y" sound at the beginning and when speaking German on the phone, usually mispronounces his name so it is easier for the person on the other end of the line.
@ralfbauer9625
Жыл бұрын
Hello Ashton, happy Sunday! Really interesting topic and well researched as usual. best regards Ralf
@TypeAshton
Жыл бұрын
Hi Ralf! Happy Sunday to you too!! It's so interesting how pervasive this assumption is about Ellis Island. All of our family that we have told about it were all super surprised. Very much an urban legend.
@conbertbenneck49
Жыл бұрын
Ashton; My parents both came from Germany, pre-WW I; met and married in New York City. My father came from Neuendettelsau, the Nuernberg area; mother from Ottobeuren (Allau). My father's family name was BESENBECK. American's had difficulty pronouncing Besenbeck or spelling it, so being in business in New York City he finally changed his family name from BESENBECK and shortened it to BENNECK - legally. So I was a born Besenbeck, but with the legal name change became a Benneck. My Besenbeck cousins are all over the NEUENDETTELSAU / Nuernberg areas. Genealogy searches become a can of worms thanks to the 30-year war between the Protestants and the Catholics. The Swedes became Protestants and invaded northern Germany and converted everyone to Protestantism. Their high water mark in Germany was just north of the Chiemsee. Some Catholic priests took their flocks and kept them away from the Swedish Army. When the Swedish Army entered a village, and all the inhabitants had fled, they burnt the town. With all Birth, Marriage and Death Records kept by the Catholic Church, if the Church was burned, all records were gone as well. In southern Bavaria, small children were still being admonished, "if you don't behave, we'll let the Swedes get you!" In the 30-years War, the Catholic Church was fighting to defend their 100% hold and domination of the population (and their income there from) vs. the Protestants who were stealing their church-goers, and their sources for cash funds and wealth in the form of inherited land (give us your farm, in your Will, and we'll guarantee your entrance to Heaven....!) See Catholic Church actions against the Cathers (Carcassonne) the Counter Reformation and the Inquisition. www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=APwXEdfUmdlHVMbevL4qS-Md-xzd1DboNg:1682276179387&q=the+goal+of+the+catholic+church+counter+reformation+or+inquisition+was+to&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3mdiQ18D-AhVckWoFHT5JA68QkeECKAB6BAgFEAE HAPAG-LLOYD was the major shipping company carrying emigrants (from many countries) from Hamburg / Bremen to New York. The President of the Company recognized he had a vast problem. People had to get to HAMBURG and be there for the ship departure times, which could entail days of waiting in Hamburg. Where can they stay? How can they get fed? Albert Ballin, set up places where emigrating families could spend the days prior to departure; have a roof over their heads; food; and was a safe area. (See Ballinstadt-Hamburg) Your grandparents most likely were on a HAPAG liner when they reached New York, and their names will be listed on the Ship Manifest.
@erikthehalfabee6234
Жыл бұрын
Amazing the variety of topics you cover
@MikeS29
Жыл бұрын
My Italian Great-Grandfather was named Carlo Pescosolido at birth, and I grew up believing the myth that Ellis Island changed his name to Carl Pierce. Then I did a little genealogical research and discovered a number of inaccuracies, such as his place of immigration into the United States was Boston, not New York, and his name was unchanged in all the documents I could find from his immigration in 1906 and beyond, such as the ship's passenger manifest, census records for 1910, etc. It was only in pursuing my own Italian citizenship that I discovered that he formally adopted the name Carl Pierce in 1920 when finally natualizing. Thank you for helping to dispell this persistent myth and paint a clearer picture of the roles and responsibilities of the workers who assisted immigrants to the U.S.
@RustyDust101
Жыл бұрын
Thanks, Ashton, for another informative video debunking certain myths that even I believed in (the supposed failures or even malicious intent of officials changing names). It's a good thing to have your own beliefs challenged regularly, and when found failing, to administer the necessary changes. Thank you for that opportunity. BTW: German from Hamburg here. In the mid to late 19th century my distant relatives who later settled in the Chicago area, and opened a German style bakery there, definitely left via Hamburg and entered via Ellis Island. They left in three waves each roughly ten years apart, bringing in more and more of the 'clan' from both southern Germany in Baden, as well as from Thüringen/Thuringia. Revealing their name shouldn't be a problem, as it was a fairly common name both back then and now: Spitz. My uncle and his wife nearly one century later, still took a ship in the early 1960's as it was a much more affordable transfer. They emmigrated with their toddler son, and the second on the way. They however entered not through Ellis Island, but went ashore in California. In both cases the family names were perfectly retained, even though my uncle's last name is as difficult to spell as it is to pronounce. My family name is so rare however that revealing it is going to reveal one of only three extended branches of the family still extant in Germany, and only ONE family in California, AFAIK which gives a bit too much info. A little spicy side-note: what I can reveal however is that I would have a very standard German name if my Great-great-great-grandmother hadn't committed the ultimate sin of having TWO illegitimate children in the late 19th century, from two different fathers nonetheless. If the second man hadn't taken her as a wife after the fact, and given her his name, I would have gotten the Allerweltsname / common name of Müller. Not dissing all the Müllers out there; it's just so common as everyone needed that craft to survive and most last names evolved from the crafts learned.
@stuarthenderson6582
Жыл бұрын
My great-grandparents on my mother's side emigrated from Prussia in 1881 boarding in Bremen with the name Loether (without the umlaut). Within 5 to 10 years they had settled in Indiana and changed their name to Lader. For unknown reasons, they returned to Germany around 1900, leaving behind my grandfather and his twin sister, both 12 at the time, with an aunt of theirs. My wife's ancestors were Germans from Hesse (or Palatinate) who emigrated to the Russia as part of Katherine the Great's (herself German) invitation of Europeans to settle the wild Volga region in the 1770's. They were known as the Volga Germans and remained culturally German (language, traditions and did not intermarry), and her grandparents emigrated to Fresno, California (specifically Germantown) in 1908. Somewhere along the way they changed their name from Brummen (to hum, buzz, grumble, drone) to Brum. My wife's father was born in Fresno, being the youngest of 8, but his older siblings all spoke German. So I'm one quarter German and my wife is half, but while living in Germany, nobody there was in the least impressed or embraced us for our German heritage: we earned it in our own right as Auslanders. By the way, the emigration museum in Bremerhaven is amazing if you get the chance.
@BlauerBooo
Жыл бұрын
Some local German radio stations - i am thinking of SWR 1 - got linguistic name experts to regularly explain the heritage of a person's name to the audience. Where the family probably comes from and especially what the family name probably meant in the past. Not for immigrants especially, but for all names that are not just commonly describing jobs or habits.
@BaluDerBaer933
Жыл бұрын
Your videos are always so great and interesting! ;-)
@pigoff123
7 ай бұрын
We were stationed in Hanau from 72 to 96. Best years of my life. Childhood was amazing. In Erlensee there is a sign on a building advertising rooms for rent. The family name is Fucker. So many Americans took pictures of it because they thought it was so funny. They also thought that poor Germans lived in the garden houses.
@lachdananx7686
Жыл бұрын
As a 10year old i once did paint a basic lineage-tree for school, close-relatives mainroot only if you start with 1400s end of bubonic plague first purchase of a house for 3 Gulden and some Taler emmigrating from the saltdomain region Austria to Bavaria. Familyname equals Gaugler, similar to Gaukler(a jester/entertainer for the king). The most interesting part when doing a tree is what you can learn, its pretty basic knowledge that this timeperiod had a higher childmortality resulting in alot of attempts to make babies but what was also interesting to find out about us Grammernazis was that Familynames usually got written differently on purpose as many times as possible in those old documents (inorder to not insult the individual who wasn´t present when documenting something to ensure that atleast once it was written correctly, therefor resulting in having up to 5 different forms of writing a name in one document), which often puts a smile on my face when i receive a letter addressing me as a Mr. Gangler during this digital age because they messed up the electronics "again". Also don´t bother finding me on the internet, theres a similar name in Namibia, its one big meltingpot rolling through space. The housename is Moir/Meier or Mair or Mayer or Maier which describes the farmer where the lower/lesser judges did hold court over tiny crimes, apperently originally a latin or hebrew name. My father married a Fußstätter, so technically we have a familycrest, its just unclear how its written due to the new spelling-reforms turning all ß into ss making Fussstätter way to complicated to write.
@gubsak55
Жыл бұрын
I am Danish and my surname (Andersen) is the fifth most common name in Denmark. My wife's name is Jørgensen (often spelt Joergensen or Jorgensen to avoid problems here in Germany and elsewhere). Back in the eighties we/she subscribed to The Atlantic or National Geographic and we got an offer to buy an American book about her ancestors. Even then there were more than 80,000 named Jørgensen in Denmark (being the tenth most common name), so she declined. 😆 We got our daughter in 1983, 22 years before we got married, and our daughter therefore had the surname Jørgensen. When we married, we both kept our surnames. You could not do that in Germany nor Luxembourg when we moved here in 2005, but as we had married in Denmark it was okay. Now our daughter has married a Dane named Andersen and she has changed her name and got an extra middle name, so now she has the same surname as me, which I find kind of great 😀- but my wife finds it a bit strange. 🤔 Some 46 % of Danish surnames end with "sen" (meaning "son of") and although it is common to share both surnames by a hyphen, it is not common if both has a name that ends with "sen" like me and my wife.
@dr.j3245
Жыл бұрын
When my French ancesters emigrated to the US 200 years ago (1823), they kept their name and we still do. In the US there are quite a few people using this name but here in Germany, to my knowledge, there are only 4 of us - myself, my wife, our son and his wife. Our namesake valley in France is still there, just no one with our name. Germans are often a bit confused at first when confronted with an American with a French name. 🙄 My paternal grandmother’s family emigrated from Sweden in the late 19th century. Their name was „Elge“ or „Moose“ in Swedish. It was changed to „Johnson“ - according to family legend it was a forced change since the official couldn’t cope with „Elge“. How true that is, is very debatable as you talked about. At any rate we have „Moose“ relatives in Sweden and „Johnson“ relatives in Wyoming. Thanks for your videos! Always a treat! Cheers, Doc.
@CharlyHubble
Жыл бұрын
🎊50k! Glückwunsch!😃
@bryanbrookss714
Жыл бұрын
My maternal grandfather was born Karl Rudolph “Rudy” Angermann in Dresden. He immigrated to the US in 1922 through Ellis Island. He changed is name to Rex Anger when becoming a naturalized US citizen.
@garydeckant7554
Жыл бұрын
My last German ancestor was named Georg Dechant. He immigrated in 1869, settling in Pennsylvania, and never changed the spelling of his last name. He did go by George once he arrived in America. He had 6 sons and 5 daughters. About 1901-1910, most of his children moved to Youngstown, Ohio, which had a promising future at that time. Three of his sons slightly altered the spelling of the surname to Deckant, probably to make it easier to pronounce. My maternal grandfather was named Ferenc Matuzar. He came from Austria-Hungary in 1907. His name was spelled correctly on the ship manifest. I cannot account for his whereabouts for the next 8 years. The next time he appears in any record was in 1914 when he is listed in the city directory of Youngstown under the name of Frank Martin. I also have the 1915 record of his marriage to my grandmother, and he continued to go by the name of Frank Martin. My guess is that he wanted to use a name that "sounded" more "American."
@ruthardbaudach2302
Жыл бұрын
@The Black Forest Family your great grandparents did not change their first name. If you read books and documents of the 19th century, you will discover that they had a different approach to names. Their was one name - like "the mighty hague" - that had different forms in different languages. Henry in English, Henri in French, Heinrich in German, Enrico in Italy, Henrik in the North, Henrikki in Finland and Генрих in Russian. And their were diminutives as Harry, Hein, Heino..., all were considered to be forms of the same name. As another example, the German form of Jack's name is Jakob, his German diminutive would be Jockel, and his "properl" English name (Jack being a diminutive) would be Jacob. If he ever went to Ireland he'd be Séamus, and so on. The idea that a name is fixed by spelling or pronunciation is a rather new one.
@SkipGole
Жыл бұрын
My last name--Gole--used to have an umlaut, which was dropped when my grandfather arrived in Canada and later moved to the USA. He spoke German in Canada and didn't learn English well until he was 16-17 years old. I wonder how the name was pronounced? There was probably a lot of code-switching back and forth on its pronunciation. He grew up in Canada before the First World War. Lots of interesting history here and there. Thanks for all your explorations!
@bazoo513
11 ай бұрын
13:12 - I knew it! (but Theo _is_ a nice name - your little deity 😀)
@sonia7blue
Жыл бұрын
This is a great job debunking the myth. One of my recent immigrant families waited over a decade to alter their name. My great grandfather's brother chose a different variation. Having native speakers writing in immigration records, and ship manifests is great, but can be a problem for indexers. I was never too concerned about the immigration records for my recent immigrant ancestors, because I know where they came from, but still wanted the records. I could never find one set of great grandparents, until I got obsessed one day. I narrowed down the conflicting reports of the date they immigrated, and finally found them in indexes with one, and/or both names misspelled for everyone. The indexer was not familiar with German handwriting. Three given names were abbreviated, my great grandmother's abbreviated name was indexed as a man, even though it says wife, and the first letter of their surname was misread. The manifest is tattered, but not difficult to read. I'm lucky I found them, and glad someone indexed them, because they got just enough right, it caught my attention.
@MsBillieLestrange
Жыл бұрын
I am from Austria and in my family history there are a few instances of people who immigrated to Austria from Czechia and sometimes their names were "germanized" over the generations, especially in terms of spelling. For example the name "Lukeš" later became "Lukesch". Or sometimes a "š" (pronounced like "sh" in English) was even dropped in the name's pronunciation and became a regular "s".
@olli1068
Жыл бұрын
Some time ago an American told me (German) a story about the benefit of not changing your name when imigrating in the US. His grandfather was German and when he came to the US he kept his last name "Neumann", which is very common in Germany. In the US however the name is often pronounced and sometimes also written "Newman". So when he receives a letter with the wrong name on it, he can decide to accepted it anyway if it looks like something he wants to receive, or to refuse it if it looks like a bill. 😅
@EinDeutscherPatriot620
Жыл бұрын
I was born in America but of mostly German descent. I speak German semi fluently and I have an American name, Connor Joseph Barron, and a German name, Jürgen Siegfried von Schumacher. My mother's maiden name is Shoemaker. My family first came here in 1660. There were three brothers, one being named Jürgen which is why I am named Jürgen. As time went on, a brother traveled south and helped begin building the town of Schulenburg in Texas which was named after Schulenburg im Oberharz, a village my family used to rule over in the Holy Roman Empire, though the brothers came from Hamburg. My family maintained strong connections to the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire until the 20th century, where we broke away from it. My grandfather looks more German than actual Germans but doesn't know a lick of German. His grandparents and great grandparents were the last ones to speak it fluently. I'm the first member of our family to begin learning German again for 100 years. I have plans to move to Germany where I'll try to find a job as a welder, hopefully in the Lower Saxony/Hamburg states and swap my official name to Jürgen Siegfried von Schumacher. As for my children, I have no intention of giving them names easy to translate into English, but are important to us Saxons historically. For my son, I want to name him Widukind Ludiulfing von Schumacher. For my daughter, Antje Brünnhilde von Schumacher
@erictrumpler9652
Жыл бұрын
My Swiss grandfather dropped the umlaut off our name Trümpler when he emigrated to Canada in 1926, so my own birth certificate and passport are under the name Trumpler... when I moved to Germany in 1982, I told everyone my name was Trümpler, because I wanted it pronounced that way, but didn't change it officially. I managed to create some bureaucratic troubles because I wasn't consistent in the spelling of my name. My two kids, now grown up, also without the Umlaut, actually prefer to have it pronounced without the Umlaut, in order to avoid the associated questions concerning spelling and pronunciation.
@onurji4311
Жыл бұрын
As a Stuttgarter, I would LOVE it to see you three visit the City of Stuttgart. You´ve already been to the Residenzschloss Ludwigsburg :D Stuttgart isn´t that far from Ludwigsburg tho :D
@brianarbenz1329
6 ай бұрын
My maternal grandparents' families came from Baden-Baden, and immigrated to southern Indiana, where some members of the families founded the mineral springs resort named West Baden, for obvious reasons. (It's the twin resort town to French Lick.). Their families had such names as Rottman, Henninger and Reuss. Rottman became Rodman, and Reuss became Royce. One factor I believe the video should have included was the U.S. entry into that terrible mistake by all the great powers, World War I. My grandfather Charles V. Rodman, told me that until 1917, the schools, churches and street signs were bilingual English/German in many towns in southern Indiana, as well as across the Ohio River in Louisville, Ky. That prejudice against "otherness" you cited erupted with the war, causing many German-Americans, first generation or successive generations, to hastily change their names. Though the Rodmans and Royces of our family had changed them in the 1800s, many people named Meuller (e substituted for umlaut) changed to Miller, and Brauns became Browns.
@poonyaTara
Жыл бұрын
Liam is the only boy's name on the 2023 list for both the US and Germany. My mother's family's name (which is a Germanic name) gets confusing not so much because there are a few variations of the spelling but because different variations of the spelling were used for people in the same family even though different families used different variations as the "correct" spelling.
@bansheesioux5569
Жыл бұрын
Dad's side is German. A few generations removed. We had relatives in the civil war. It's a common German last name with many spellings Shultz, Schultz, Schulz etc.. Of course they're from Wisconsin too
@rippspeck
Жыл бұрын
This is where your name comes from, in case you didn't know already. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulthei%C3%9F
@amonoceros
10 ай бұрын
On my dad's side, the German name went from having "ui" to just being "u". And, yeah, at some point I think we kinda figured that it was an Ellis Island thing or something, but realistically it was probably just, "There isn't a lot of 'ui' bits in names in the US, so let's drop the i". What's kinda fascinating about it, is that I had the opportunity to go to the (very small) city where those ancestors lived, and managed to find the church that my great great grandfather was baptized at. And then found tombstones with the pretty-uncommon last name. And then found out that another probable (but distant) relative was active in the church, _now_. Not _entirely_ related, that particular trip also involved looking for places where Danish relatives on my mom's side had lived. And, thanks again to a relatively-uncommon last name and a small city, we managed to track down the somehow-still-there gravestones of some of my direct ancestors. And then later on, find out that a slightly-different line of direct ancestors had lived in Germany, but the part of Germany that is now Denmark. Which is to say, as an American living in Germany, my ancestry contains a fair bit of German, but at some point it's hard to really say where the German ends and the Danish begins. And that the non-American view of ancestry is clearly different.
@Opa_Andre
Жыл бұрын
Wow, thats very interesting. Regarding my own family name, I'm obviously lucky that one of my anchestors did a research and probably spent a good amount of money to trace my family back with birthdays back to the early 18. century (1717) and one generation even earlier where they just have the names and their wedding date. While I have a family name which is rare about how it's written, it is easy to pronounce correctly in German when reading. However not so much, when an english speaker reads it. When I was a kid, my grandpa told me on several occations that to his knowledge all people with the exact writing of my family name are relatives. Although not being that much into geneanology I recently did a research on it and found my family name to be listed mostly in Germany (338 times), the USA (11 times) and in the Netherlands, UK and France (2 times each). However besides to my dad's brothers family and my own parents and grandparents, I didn't have any contact to any of them. But it's fun to see that there are people living in the US which share my family's name even more because it's somehow difficult to pronounce in English.
@nicolewegener6126
Жыл бұрын
Hallo, so eine Namensänderung passierte nicht nur bei Immigration, auch bei normalen erstellen von Urkunden in Deutschland. In meiner Familie gibt es ein Ereignis, bei dem der Familienname meines Urgroßvaters geändert wurde, weil ein Standesbeamte ein "e" vergessen hat. Das wurde nicht mehr geändert, so dass der Zweig der Familie nun ohne ein "e" in der Mitte des Familiennamens weiter existiert.
@hermannschaefer4777
Жыл бұрын
Das ist normal. Standesämter gibt es erst seit rund 1870, vorher waren denkbare Urkunden nur die Kirchenbücher - und beileibe nicht jeder Pfarrer war der deutschen Sprache so mächtig wie notwenig.. Statt "Wegener" würde man da regelmäßig Wegner, Wagner, Wägner etc. finden, auch sind Verdoppelungen von Konsonanten üblich (Schäfer wird Schäffer). Und selbst später gibt es immer wieder Fehler bei Umlauten etc.
@Tinkerbe11
Жыл бұрын
@@hermannschaefer4777 Nicht nur das. Lange gab es keine Schulpflicht, und selbst als es sie gab wurde sie oft nicht eingehalten, weil die Kinder im elterlichen Betrieb mitarbeiten mussten. Daher konnten viele Menschen nicht lesen und schreiben und wussten wahrscheinlich selber nicht wie man ihren Namen schreibt. Die sagten ihren Namen dann an verschiedenen Stellen, wo er aufgeschrieben wurde, und der, der ihn aufschrieb schieb ihn so wie er ihn verstanden hatte.
@karstenschuhmann8334
Жыл бұрын
Hello Nobleones. You had me thinking I was listening to the Metatron.
@schoppi9300
Жыл бұрын
As always, absolutely well researched and presented. One notices that you come from an academic environment, Dr. Ashton :-). I look forward to your contributions every Sunday over a cup of coffee, especially the historical ones. Perhaps you could follow this up with articles on famous German-American entrepreneurs and how they helped shape the country, or the German emigrants and their role in the Civil War (there were a lot of them), as well as in the later army. Also interesting are the artists who helped shape Hollywood, among other things. From Rockefeller, Boing, Studebaker, Steinway etc. to Nimitz, Custer, Eisenhower to Elvis Pressler, Doris Day. Marx Brothers. It would also be interesting to know how they fared and what problems they had and what successes they had. Since they were either Catholic or Protestant, they quickly married other nationalities, such as the Irish (Grace Kelly). As they were more down-to-earth, they also tended to pursue their profession rather than, for example, panning for gold on the goldfields themselves (butcher, hotel, baker, general shop, etc.). Maybe you'd like to look into it (I know it's a lot of work :-), but I'm sure it would be interesting), but it would be in good hands with you - for sure.
@TainakaRicchan
Жыл бұрын
So many people, inside germany no less, get my last name wrong, so many times, despite it sounding very german, it jast happens to be a very rare variation of a way more wlel known last name... It is still quite the hassle sometimes when speaking with officials.
@KVaGer
Жыл бұрын
Choosing a name that is easy to read and pronounce both for people in your home country and in your country of living is a great gift for your children. I know, cause mine is undoubtedly difficult and for English speakers and for Germans)
@kathilisi3019
Жыл бұрын
I'm also doing genealogy at the moment and have traced some branches of my family back to the late 17th century. There's one name that went back and forth from "Anibas" to "Onibas" to "Ohnewas" due to changes in Austrian dialect and the more or less educated guesses of literate officials. Another name on my husband's side of the family, on the Hungarian border, changed several times as it was sometimes written in German and sometimes in Hungarian. And that same name was *actually* changed (drumroll...) on Ellis Island! It was written correctly but sloppily on the passenger list of some relatives who emigrated to America, and the first time their names were taken down in the US they were wrongly transcribed from that list (someone mistook a sloppy lowercase y for an a), and they only went back to the original spelling in the second census they underwent in the US. They kept the "wrong" spelling for about 10 years.
@Engy_Wuck
Жыл бұрын
My grandfather on my mothers side did change his birthplace after WW2. He was born in the Elsass-Lothringen region when it was german but in a village with a french name. After 1918 the region became french, but by then he didn't live there anymore. Since he fought in the Wehrmacht the officers in the French Occupation Zone (where he lived after the war) tended to think he was a deserter for not fighting for the French while being born in a village with a french name - so he simply translated the name of his birthplace to its german equivalent and they didn't ask where that was exactly :-) The fact that he spoke french and could translate for his neighbours helped of course. At least that's told in my family. I never met him personally (he died before I was born). Not an emigration story, but an example how it can become complicated if you want to search your ancestors origins.
@BaluDerBaer933
Жыл бұрын
One part of my family that emigrated to America changed its name from Hörmann to Herman.... sounds almost the same! ;-)
@BaluDerBaer933
Жыл бұрын
But this was already in the 1920s, so we always hold contact with them until the 1990s!
@alboyer6
Жыл бұрын
My grandparents had a ton of kids. The older ones learned German but once they go into achool the family stressed speaking English. My mom was born in 41 so also not a great time to be speaking German in the US. Food was the culture that held on the best.
@crosseyedbear1305
Жыл бұрын
I'd be interested to find out more about the differences in how first names are chosen in the US and Germany. My father is American and was given his mother's family name (Cardon) as a first name. If people did that here in Switzerland, there would be some strange results. Let's say Mr Ochsenbein marries Ms Würmli. They could call their kid Würmli Ochsenbein, which translates as Little Worm Oxleg.
@sonia7blue
Жыл бұрын
This happened a lot in the regions of Eastern Shore Maryland, and Tidewater Virginia. People named their children after their ancestors' surnames. They even gave daughters surnames as given names like Scarborough, and my 5th great grandmother was called Newton. She named her children Bowdoin, Littleton, Robins, and Sarah Newton.
@eriknelson5390
Жыл бұрын
There is a few changes in my family history from my ancestors that immigrated. On my father's side, his maternal grandfather name in Sweden was Andersson but after coming to the US was changed to Palm. And his paternal grandfathers name is not that hard to figure out on the change. His name was Nilsson and changed to Nelson. On my mothers side, from her fathers side of the family changed the name from Philippe to Philippi. But the others kept it the same. My grandmothers family came from Ireland so no change was necesary.
@Cadfael007
Жыл бұрын
I come from the Lower Rhine Area Germany where so many names have a strange writings! Like Straelen, Nieukerk, Brouwers, Baesdonk (spoken: Strahlen, Neukerk, Brauers, Baaßdong). When I was a child (50 years ago) many people still stoke the Dutch sounding dialects!
@thebigphilbowski
Жыл бұрын
My maternal grandmother was an immigrant herself and they came relatively late in the game so her name didn't change. But according to a family tree made by my great-aunt my an ancestor of mine from one of the German States I forget which, wound up getting land in Quebec for his service in the Revolution started with a German name but each successive generation made it more and more French until it became the name my Paternal Grandmother was born with.
@wolsch3435
Жыл бұрын
Your ancestor, Henry Haferkamp, was probably called Heinrich Haferkamp in Germany. In German, the two a's in the family name are pronounced like the a in father. The names Oltmann or Oldermann probably come from Northern or Western Germany, where Low German was spoken. Olt and Olde are the equivalent of High German alt.
@TypeAshton
Жыл бұрын
Yes, we had always heard that it is "likely" that others with the last name "Altman/Altmanns/Altmann" could be related to us. That name appears to be more common than our spelling of Oltmanns.
@SchmulKrieger
Жыл бұрын
Haferkamp is also Low German, otherwise it would be probably Haberkampf.
@nitka711
Жыл бұрын
This was not only done in the US. A while after WWII Germany had a lot of immigrants from former German territories or former occupied territories. Mostly people who had one or more German ancestors. Germans who stayed after the territory was given to another country like what happened to Poland or German soldiers who staid in the foreign country and had families there. They were called Spätaussiedler. My father came from east Poland and my Mother from around the middle. Her Grandfather was a German who married a Polish woman. My fathers last name could have been Polish but it might have even been Russian, which I learned later. It was „eingedeutscht“, when they came here. This means that the spelling was changed so as to make it easier for Germans. It went from a cz to a sch. Later, when I was in Grade 8 I think, I had 2 weeks of Russian and I learned there, that Russian names were sometimes „translated“ into our alphabet only by sound. Which meant that my last name could have been a very distinct russian word, if you just changed one letter (which sounds the same as the other one). That was a cool discovery. On another note, I know of one person who had their first name changed. I don‘t know if the parents did it themselves or if they were „forced“, but I do know this person changed the name back to the original in later years.
@bettinaknuelle9981
Жыл бұрын
I highly recommend visiting the immigration museum on Ellis Island, NY, USA. It is fabulous! I am looking forward to go the emigration museum in Bremerhaven, Germany.
@Etothe2iPi
Жыл бұрын
Kevin would be my first guess. My first name is Beat (uniquely Swiss). It was funny how Americans tried to cope with that name and I was even called "the human beat-box", even though I went to great lengths explaining that my name had the same root as the English word beatitude.
@collintheviking2082
Жыл бұрын
I saw that in the top ten list for boy's names in both countries, Theo(dore), Ben(jamin), Henry, and Noah were all present. Much more overlap between them than I thought there would be! Assuming the name would be spelled the exact same way between the lists, Henry or Noah are my guesses since the US had the long versions of Theo and Ben!
@Simple_Lina
Жыл бұрын
I think it is Noah :D
@EinDeutscherPatriot620
Жыл бұрын
Henry ist Heinrich in Hochdeutsch
@jeromemckenna7102
Жыл бұрын
My maternal grandparents came here as Polish speakers from the Russian Empire. Family lore has it that a teacher in the local elementary school in Pennsylvania gave it a phonetic spelling which sounds about right.
@NKKBerlin
Жыл бұрын
Many of the changes in German surnames occurred between 1914 and 1918. The hardships of ethnic German Americans during this time would also be an interesting topic...
@raymobula
Жыл бұрын
Another harbour in Germany was the port of Cuxhaven. Today the place is still called “Amerika Hafen”
@lisakilmer2667
Жыл бұрын
I had friends in high school who were Chinese-American. Their family story was that a grandfather's surname and given names were swapped on Ellis Island, because Chinese report their surname first, then given name. The real family name was given to each child as a middle name, ever after. A completely different story exists in the family I married into: they were German-speaking, in the 1740s, presumed to be fleeing constant wars (or just possibly "radical" Protestants as that was the time when Mennonites were forcibly evicted in many places). Genealogy research has been difficult because the family name was mis-spelled on Revolutionary War paymaster records, so at least two families were conflated.
@wojecire
Жыл бұрын
I track my German ancestor coming over in 1753 on the ship called "Brothers". His name was Daniel Wunderlich and at some point after settling in Pennsylvania it was changed to Wonderly. I have no additional info about why he and his older brother came over but there is a bit of info to suggest his family was very well off in the Ludwigsburg area back in the duchey of Württemberg. I dont have any concrete records but i did see someone write online that someone in the family maybe have worked as a foreman during the construction of the Palace at Ludwigsburg. I have no clue how to search for any additional information but i am so curious I've even started seriously thinking about visiting Germany for the sole purpose of finding more info. My only problem is i just don't know where to start.
@alisonlutton9378
Жыл бұрын
Interesting! I have German family names from my maternal grandmother and grandfather. I know from census records that my great grandfather was born in Prussia and consistently listed Germany as his home country in census records. His last name was consistently Brzozowski and he arrived in the 1880s. His sons born here changed their names to Brosky. One brother chose Brooky. My grandmother once joked, why didn’t he just go all the way to Brooks? Her mother’s family name was Oestreich. In that family, parents and daughters emigrated between 1900 and 1910. That name was lost to my family in the next generation as the sisters married and took their American husbands’ German names. The sisters inconsistently listed Russia, Poland or Germany as their home country and I know national lines were shifting in those decades. They all spoke German but stopped teaching it to their American children in the 1930s. They emigrated through Hamburg and had a brother who remained in Germany. I imagine that they lost touch during WWII but don’t really know. Some of their sons fought in that war as American soldiers. This brother in Germany was apparently spoken of rarely but with love. One of the sister’s 1949 obituaries refers to him as “somewhere in Europe”. Such complicated history in those lives…
@alisonlutton9378
Жыл бұрын
@@TabeaSerenety I knew that but find it interesting that he’s the one ancestor who consistently listed Germany as his homeland and German as his language in US census records. My great grandfather August Brzozowski met and married Florentine Oesterreich (various spellings) in the U.S. I believe her name is a German name meaning eastern region or Reich. I remember her, she spoke German and a little English. The family Bible was German. I know there is a border area somewhere that has been part of Germany, Poland and Russia at different times and suspect the Oesterreich sisters lived there. All my mother’s generation knows is that the sisters spoke German, described themselves as German, and a brother named Otto stayed in “Germany” and may have been there during both world wars. Their obituaries name each other and “a brother Otto somewhere in Europe”. Florentine talked a lot about being responsible for the geese as a young girl and how mean they are ; )
@alisonlutton9378
Жыл бұрын
German ethnic groups eventually formed Germany and my German ancestors probably lived in eastern German regions that mingled and sometimes intermarried with Polish and Russian language groups. The oldest Oestreich sister married John Schwolgin in “Germany”. They emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1901 and found husbands for the other three sisters who emigrated between 1902 and 1915 and immediately married men with German surnames: Seig, Buchholz. My Brzozowski great grandfather emigrated as a young child in 1886, saw himself as German though his paternal name is Polish and maternal name, Dvorak, is Czech. Those national borders were changeable during their lifetimes.
@alisonlutton9378
Жыл бұрын
@@TabeaSerenety thanks! I’d be happy if you choose to go on ; ) Can you point me to a good source to learn more German and Northern European history?
@mysterium368
Жыл бұрын
The background music of todays intro was pretty fancy.
@missis_jo
Жыл бұрын
I think back in the days it was also very common to „translate“ names, especially given names. Think of all the great composers and writers: Peter Tschaikowski, Leo Tolstoi, Jean-Sébastien Bach (J.S. Bach in French )…. People back then were absolutely able to speak several languages and still they would use the equivalent of their names accordingly to the countries they visited. Also I‘d imagine it must be a nuisance to have a name you can’t even pronounce yourself because your ancestors decided to not pass on their language. I know quite a lot of people who do not even know their last names are Hungarian for example and therefore pronounce them „wrong“. I see how they would just start to omit letters like ő, ű, õ (last one ist not Hungarian but Estonian). When I lived in Japan I had a very hard time every time anything official got involved, because my last name contains an Umlaut and in German official documents you would convert that Umlaut to ae/oe/ue, which the Japanese don’t recognize as valid. I almost lost my student visa in the very first week when my Beamten-Japanse basically wasn’t existent yet (it still kinda wasn’t after one year 😅).
@conbertbenneck49
Жыл бұрын
Ashton: Another interesting bit to broaden your knowledge about German family names. The German Government required everyone to register an official family name in 1849. This is where you get the identifying trade names: Schneider; Koch; Schmied; Baecker; Schreiner; Bauer; Mahler; Fassbinder; Mueller; Metzger; Fischer; Jaeger. Jewish families objected strenuously to this, and many refused to give a family name for the Register. So, the clerks, who had to fill out the Registers, and were writing down names ( ordnung muss sein ) were obliged to create family names out of thin air. This is why you now find former German Jewish names like "Goldstein; Eisenstein; Treppengelaender; Hundegeburt; Apfel; Pelzmantel; Schwartz; Weiss; Blau; etc.
@jald910
Жыл бұрын
My paternal grandmother was born in Norway in the 1870’s. They were using a patronymic system. Her last name was her father’s first “Nils” plus dotter. ( with diacritics I can’t recall/type). He was Nils plus his father’s first name plus son. When they came to the U.S. they got the surname Brown. This apparently came from Brunes farm where they came from. I am told that Brun means Brown but Brunes means headland. Any Norway experts out there please correct me if I am wrong.
Пікірлер: 573