John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 428

The last note discussed the Holt family, whose name in Germany was Hold.  Warren Holt Talley contributed to a clarification of the spelling of two names in the German ancestry.  This was after the work sponsored by Jimmy Veal to verify the original reported information.  Mr. Talley tells me also that there is a third verification of the spelling of the two names in question.  When Warren was arranging the baptism of his granddaughter a year ago August in the church at Stetten, the ancestral home, he requested information on the Hold family.  The pastor gave him two family group sheets with also showed the spelling of Brückmann and Nägelin so that this is a third source for the correct spelling of these names.

In another case, Steven Broyles worked with the microfilms to verify the Broyles history.  He found some differences from the earlier information which had been published.  Incidentally, both Steven and Warren had no prior experience with the German microfilms but they were able, with some serious effort, to do research.  The points to be made here are these:

  1. The published reports on the microfilms of the German church records should be taken as a pointer and should be verified.  The batting average on the correctness of the reported data is not perfect.  In two families I know of, where verification has been sought, there have been some improvements in the readings.

  2. People without prior training can do the work.  Some have become very expert; others have limited their research to specific cases and families.

Returning now to the German spelling of some of our names, I recently learned what appears to be the spelling of the Clemons, Clemmons, Clemans name.  The family came in the 1730's and settled in the northeast part of what became Madison County.  In the 1740's they sold their land there and moved to the Shenandoah Valley.  This name was spelled, apparently, as Kleman in German to judge by a signature.

Most of the German names of the First Colony people are known.  For example, the Holtzclaw or Holsclaw name in America was spelled as Holzklau in Germany.  The "z" sound in Germany comes close to a "tz" sound in America English.  The syllable "-klau" is rendered by the American spelling of "-claw", without changing the sound.  The Holzklau name in Germany today is very rare.

The Fischbachs became Fishbacks in America.  The change in the sound is minor and the name cannot be pronounced in German without suggesting the English words, fish and back .  The words "fisch" and "fish" mean the same thing but "bach", meaning brook, is not the same as "back."

The rather popular name of Richter in Germany (perhaps 90,000 appearances today) became Rector in America among the Germanna colonists.  Some other Richters in America have kept the spelling Richter.

We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.