A recent inquiry about the Pickler family led George Durman to comment that the name was a variation of the "Blankenbaker" name. Or more correctly, the Blankenbaker and Pickler names are variations of much older spellings. The earliest known spellings date from a court document of 1577 in Steinakirchen in Austria. Two witnesses who were testifying on behalf of Georg Treuer were Erhart Plangkhenpuehler and Lieonhardt Planckhenpuehler, see page 773 of Beyond Germanna . Georg Treuer is believed to have been a Lutheran pastor who led the Reformation in the area. In the Counter-Reformation, it was attempted to expel the Lutherans and to return to the Catholic religion. The two men, among several others, appeared in court to testify in favor of Georg Treuer. This conflict, between the Catholics and the Lutherans, went on for almost another one hundred years and became the reason that there are many Austrians who made their way to Germany and to America.
By the time the name came to America, the " P 's" had become " B 's," the " h " after the " k " had been dropped, and the " c " before the " k " was dropped. Hence the name became Blankenbuehler.
The farm that Jacob Plankenbuehler lived on in 1600 in Gresten-Land, Austria, was (and is still) known as Planckenbichl. Generally, " bichl " is the older form of the word "hill" and " buehl " is the newer form for the word "hill". We will see that the form " bichl " led to the name Pickler.
In America, Matthias Blankenbuehler had three sons, George (born in Germany), John, and Christopher. George died very young, apparently after only one son, John, was born (in the 1740's). The mother remarried and the family moved to Rowan County, North Carolina. The infant John maintained his biological father's name. In North Carolina, the boy was the only one of the name Plankenpickler. Interestingly, this spelling harkens back to some of the oldest spellings of the name in Austria.
John had four sons and they agreed to change the spelling to something shorter. In choosing a new spelling, they looked upon Plankenpickler as a double name, i.e., Planken-Pickler. They decided that the last half of the name would be enough and so the descendants of John became Picklers. Apparently, and no evidence to the contrary is known, all adopted the new spelling.
Many of the descendants lived in North Carolina and still do. Some moved to Tennessee, and, of course, with the passage of time they diffused all over America from North Carolina.
A major researcher of the Pickler family is Eugene B. Pickler, Route 1, Box 470, New London, NC 28127. He would be a good starting point for anyone who wishes to pursue questions concerning the Picklers.
(21 Apr 04)
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.