German Surname Question

mecklenburg-l
1

Hello,

I have a German surname question. The family name(s) in question come from the Ritzerow (near Stavenhagen), Mecklenburg area, so I believe I am asking the question to the proper list. I should state that I understand very little German.

One of the internet family tree matching services matched my great grandmother in my family tree to a family tree maintained by an individual in Meclenburg, Germany.

My grandmother spelled her mothers maiden name ZANZIG and the individual maintaining their family tree in Germany spelled the the same individuals maiden name ZANZICH on their web site. The date of birth and village, parents given/first names and other details matched except for the spelling of the surname/last name.

I have documentation in my grandmother's hand of the spelling of her mothers maiden name and a family genealogy published in 1988 that spells my great grandmother's maiden name as Zanzig.

I contacted the individual that maintains their family tree on the internet in Germany about the match and they sent me information of additional parents children. But now in there email to me they changed the spelling of our common ancestors surname/last name to Zanzig from Zanzich.

Can someone shed some insight as to what may be going on with the two different spellings?

During this "learning experience" I discovered a peculiarity of Google Translate. If you enter "Zanzig" in the word to be translated field, Google translates it to "twenty in English. Is this correct correct? Should this reported to Google?

It appears to me that the individual in Germany and I have two sisters of the same parents in common, one sister in their family tree and a different sister (my great grandmother) in my family tree. All of this because I want to know who made a Victorian (1884) punched paper embroidery given to me by my grandmother.

Thank you.

David Stuhr

2

Twenty is zwanzig.

3

Hello David Stuhr,
you are right in Stavenhagen there is a big family Zanzich/Zanzig.
Sometimes the surname changed
but it is the same family.
I have the surname too from Juergensdorf, Stavenhagen: Zanzich, Adolph
Christian married
11.June 1824 Mohr, Auguste Christina.
I know they immigrated in 1856 - .

Regards
Doris

4

Hello David,

the ending '-ig' in German is pronounced '-ich'. Check this video
Introduction to Perfect German Pronunciation - YouTube. At 1:37 you will hear the word
'nicht' which also has that sound. Some people tend to over correct the
pronounciation by saying '-ig' with a very soft g .

German writing/spelling rules have been quite flexible and depended very
much on who said a certain word and how that word was heard by the other
person. A variety of spellings has been quite normal. That means even though
there might be people with Zanzig or Zanzich as family name, they still
might be related.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,
Melanie (with ancestors from Stavenhagen / Ivenack area)

5

Hi Doris and David,
I found a
Georg ZANZIG in the church records of Ivenack (near Stavenhagen).
He was a Godfather at 30. October 1794.
Regards
Bernd Goertz

6

I concur with Melanie - it's very likely that these are alternative spellings of the same name. The pronunciation is the same, and the pastor will have written down what he heard. There are different spellngs for some of the surnames in my family, sometimes in the same generation - my great-grandmother was Elise Breede, her brother was Eduard Brede. Wunderwaldt/Wunderwald is another one that occurs in my family.

And we have the same in my husband's British family, where spellings of some names vary even more widely.

Angelika

7

Schröder became Schroder and Schroeder.
Brothers from near Neukalen.

John Rodenburg