Do you have a German family in your ancestry? Many times this is not an easy question to answer. Some names may or may not give us a clue. Consider the name Crow , which sounds as though it may be English. As I drive by a local business named Kroh , then I am a little less certain that Crow is always an English name.
Some of the time it pays to look at the neighbors of the people you are researching. Is there a pattern in the names of the neighbors in land deeds, patents or grants? My theory is that a German gets to know his German neighbors before he knows his English neighbors, and vice versa. A modern researcher, Louise Hodge, observed that her Charles Frady ancestor seemed to be living among Germans. She went to the German church and armed with the phonetic equivalents she found her ancestor as Karl Vrede or Carl Wrede .
This last observation shows the value of knowing some of the phonetic equivalents, so that a name can be recognized when written by another nationality.
What are the first names of the children? Certain names are favored by the Germans, while the English tended to use a different set. If you have Catherines, Marys, Elizabeths, Barbaras, or Johns, Henrys, or Fredericks then you may have a German family, at least to the extent that the spouse who takes the leading role in naming the children is German.
I use another thought also. How many different ways is the name misspelled in the records? The more ways it is misspelled, the greater the chance that it is German.
The surest way to tell if a first generation man is English or German is to see his signature. No Englishman would write in the way that a German is taught; however, sometimes a German will use Latin letters. The best proof that a man is German is to find his signature in German script.
Maybe this note will spur you to contribute your ideas also.
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.