Someone on this list was kind enough to look up my family records at St. Bonifatius Catholic Church in Neuenkirchen (Thank you Jan!). My great great grandfather spelled his last name Klostermann when he came to America. The church records in Germany had his father's name spelled Klausterman . The Church records showed some of his children with the last name of Claustermann. Could someone tell my why? He also told me that my family was born and lived on the Heusmann Farm in Neuenkirchen. Does anyone know who the Heusmann's were?
Thanks for any help,
Debi Klosterman Snow
Hello DEbi,
the name of the farm is spelled Huesmann and not Heusmann!
Regards
Jan
In the past the C and K were pretty much interchangeable - Carl/Karl.
As to living on the Huesmann farm - they were probably Heuerleute who
had a small piece of land for their own use in exchange for labor for
the actual farm owner.
Fred
Hi Debi.
You need to understand that many people of those times were in fact almost or completely illiterate, it often depended on how the name was heard by the person writing the record, as to how it was spelt. Later successive Pastors/Priests may also have spelt the names of Parishioners differently in their record keeping, giving rise to the fact that the same family spelt their names differently ?
The second thing you should do , is search under the property name for ancestors, many people of that time used the property name as a surname, at the same time they used their normal surname, quite interchangeably ??
While I can't tell you who the Houseman's were, it was a very common name in Germany & still is to this day.
Regards Bill HINTE.
Thanks for correcting me...I must have typed it wrong from your notes to me. Hope you are doing well.
Debi Snow
Thanks everyone for your hints and help on my questions regarding the different spellings.
Debi Klosterman Snow