Hallo Jurgen,
This story sounds the same as in Britain. In the 11th century (the year
was
1066) William Of Orange conquered England. He wanted to know how much
money
he could raise in taxes. He did this by sending his scribes around the
kingdom counting the number of farms, dwellings and how many subjects he
had. At that time people only had the name they were baptized with and
there could be many John, son of John the smith; or John, son of the son
of
John the smith - or William redbearded one, son of William long shanks
(long
legs), living in the area. King William ordered that everyone had to have
a
surname. Just like Hannorerians they chose colour of their hair, where
they
lived or what they did for a living - I never have found out what the
surname "Snodgrass" meant in olde English. The data was collected and
written into a book. The book still exists today and is called the
"Doomsday Book".
Rena, still looking for Flemme/Flamme, Ehlers, Bielstein.
---
From: JEW.Meyer@t-online.de ( "J�rgen E.W. Meyer" )
Subject: Re: [HN] Surname help please
Hi,
just a v e r y rough history of surnames in Germany. Developments differ
between the regions.
Up to the Middle Ages people just had their given name. In the course of
migration, developing trade etc. further discriminations became necessary.
Some people were called by their profession, certain attributes, heritage
etc.. (eg. Johann (de)Zimmermann = John (the) Carpenter, Johann von K�ln,
Hinrich Kurze).
This development began in the bigger towns spreading slowly to the rural
areas. The first surnames were recorded in K�ln (Cologne) in the late 11th
century. Bremen�s senate ruled that each citizen shall bear a surname in
the
13th or 14th century.
In some areas (e.g. rural Ostfriesland, East Frisia) ist was a tradition
to
adopt the father�s given name as surname. Jan Simons� (his fathers given
name was Simon) son Jan was called Jan Jansen (Jan son of Jan), his son
Piet
would be called Piet Jansen, his son Hinrich Hinrich Peters (or Pieters
etc.
). Latest by the middle of the 19th century this was forbidden and the
people were forced to adopt fixed surnames. Within the Jewish population
there was a similar development.
In other rural areas (Grafschaften Diepholz and Hoya; north of Hannover)
the
groom inheriting into a farm took his wife�s surname.
It is true that in some rural areas surnames were not used in daily life.
The persons were called by their farm�s name (e.g. Hinners Peter = Peter
living on the Hinners farm; his real name may have been Peter Schmidt).
But
in official documents,in general, their surnames appeared.
Until the beginning of civil registration and developing education names
were often spelled according to what the writer heard. Even within one and
the same document the name could appear in different ways.
This was just a short glance into surname history, taking the northern
regions into account. Maybe there are other traditions elsewhere in
Germany.