y umlaut
SUSAN EDGELL
language. I received copies of church records from Osnabruck that spell
my ancestors name Me"ymann. The spelling on the following generation's
records changed, around 1800, to Maimann
Gerhard Heinrich --------- Parent: Johan Heinrich Me"ymann
Gerhard's death record reads:
Gerhard Heinrich Maimann Father: Johan Heinrich Maimann le Me"ymann
Is it possible that Me"ymann is not a German name and the change to
Maimann was to conform to the German spelling of that name, or was the y
umlaut once used and the change was to simply modernize the name or ...
some other explanation of the y umlaut?
Thank you for any help with this,
Susan
CMitschelen
names, it took the place that is now held by the i. Bey and seyn (with or
without the dots) was common. The change in the name had nothing more to do
with conforming to German spelling than many of the other spelling changes.
Maier is a very common example: Mayer and Meyer, each with and sometimes
without the dots and for a while I found the same people spelled as Majer.
The pronunciation of the name seemed to remain the same. The spelling had a
lot to do with the opinion of the person doing the writing.
Celia
SUSAN EDGELL wrote in message <3718EAC9...@home.com>...
maXchulte
resemblance to the Dutch language and the y-umlaut or ij is a very
common Dutch character, still used. To my knowledge the sound does
not ressemble any sound in the English language. You could start
trying to say a name like Rhein, and then contract the muscles in your
upper lips right and left corner. After a day or two you should be
able to produce the correct sound.
Meanwhile I have been investigating intensively some villages West of
Osnabrueck like Recke, Mettingen and Ibbenbueren, and I find
Meyman/Meimann, especially in Recke, which used to be in the diocese
of Muenster. You don't happen to have a connection to Recke I
suppose?
maXchulte
SUSAN EDGELL
explanations. It would never have occurred to me that the "y was actually
ij, especially since the Osnabrueck researcher translated it as a y (no
umlaut). But, that is why I asked and knew I could depend on you for the
answer.
Thanks again for your help,
Susan
Michael Hobbie
1750) changed to y, ij, i or ie
Michael
SUSAN EDGELL schrieb in Nachricht <3718EAC9...@home.com>...
MonikaYost
>my ancestors name Me"ymann. The spelling on the following generation's
>records changed, around 1800, to Maimann
>Gerhard Heinrich --------- Parent: Johan Heinrich Me"ymann
>Gerhard's death record reads:
>Gerhard Heinrich Maimann Father: Johan Heinrich Maimann le Me"ymann
>Is it possible that Me"ymann is not a German name and the change to
>Maimann was to conform to the German spelling of that name, or was the y
>umlaut once used and the change was to simply modernize the name or ...
>some other explanation of the y umlaut?
The spelling has changed many times over the centuries, and the language used
during the 1300's is so different from modern German, that even Germans have a
hard time understanding what they just have read. The spelling of "y actually
is not that, but ij instead. The ij was used frequently prior to the
introduction of the y. Therefore the old spelling of your name was MEIJMANN,
later changed to MEYMANN, and then again probably changed the spelling to
MEIMANN, and MAIMANN. When doing research on your name, you want to look for
the following possible spellings for your name: MAIMANN, MAIMAN, MEIMANN,
MEIMAN, MAYMANN, MAYMAN, MEYMANN, MEYMAN, MAIJMANN, MAIJMAN, MEIJMANN, MEIJMAN
Good luck. Monika
Adalbert Goertz
Subject: y umlaut
re:
I have been told that the y umlaut does not exist in the present German
language. I received copies of church records from Osnabruck that spell
my ancestors name Me"ymann. The spelling on the following generation's
There is no y-umlaut in the German language.
It is simply a short-cut for -ij-
-- ******** Adalbert & Barbel Goertz ****** ph 719-390-1088 ****--
--- retired in Colorado Springs, Colorado (Karl May country) ---
Genealogy of Mennonites in East and West Prussia; Amt Driesen
Grund- und Hypotheken-Acten ab 1783; Regulierungen,Abloesungen,
Praestations-Tabellen. Kreise Schwetz, Graudenz, Culm, Thorn.
Mitglied des Vereins Familienforschung in Ost- und Westpreussen
Ethnic cleansing of Prussia in 1945 has its repeat in Kosovo today.
Karl Sigerist Sr.
letters i and j written together as "ij" is pronounced more or less like
a Y same as ij.
i.e. such as His = zijn, Mine = mijne . or in a family name suc as Tijssens
my wifes maiden naam, or a placenaam "IJzelstijn"
This could be very often an indicators of dutch roots
--
Gruß
Karl Sr.
Karl_S...@bc.sympatico.ca
Adalbert Goertz <goe...@fatalerr.com> wrote in article
<9244...@fatalerr.com>...
Susan Ferrill
I have seen many East Prussian documents on microfilm at the local FHC
which have ÿ (y umlaut--which is alt 152 with the Num Lock on for those
of you with PC's. The surnames I saw were Boÿ (Boy with an umlaut over
the y) and Maÿ (umlaut over the y here also). The documents were written
in German, so obviously at SOME point in time the ÿ (y umlaut) did exist
in the German alphabet.
Susan
mona_...@juno.com
I've seen it in 1740-1776 Mecklenburg-Strelitz records with the name
Beyer, which was alternately spelled Beyers (no umlaut), Beier, Baier,
Bayer and B"a"yer. (Unless, of course, it's really B"aijer).
And in Heylander, or is that Heijlander?
And in Me"yer, or is that Meijer?
Seems I remember someone saying that the two dots were not really
umlauts, but were used to show that this was a separate syllable.
Mona
On Sun, 18 Apr 1999 19:10:43 -0500 Susan Ferrill <sf...@onramp.net>
writes:
%Susan,
%
%I have seen many East Prussian documents on microfilm at the local FHC
%which have ÿ (y umlaut--which is alt 152 with the Num Lock on for
%those
%of you with PC's. The surnames I saw were Boÿ (Boy with an umlaut over
%the y) and Maÿ (umlaut over the y here also). The documents were
%written
%in German, so obviously at SOME point in time the ÿ (y umlaut) did
%exist
%in the German alphabet.
%
%Susan
%
%SUSAN EDGELL wrote:
%
%> Thank you Max, Siegfried, Celia and Uwe for your very informative
%> explanations. It would never have occurred to me that the "y was
%actually
%> ij, especially since the Osnabrueck researcher translated it as a y
%(no
%> umlaut). But, that is why I asked and knew I could depend on you for
%the
%> answer.
%> Thanks again for your help,
%> Susan
%>
%> maXchulte wrote:
%>
%> > In the records from that area and from before 1800 there is a lot
%of
%> > resemblance to the Dutch language and the y-umlaut or ij is a very
%> > common Dutch character, still used.
%
Mona in MO
Mona_...@juno.com
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TomKerth
separate sound, such as "y" vs. "ÿ", the way we have "a" vs. "ä". It's like the
way some teenagers used to dot the "i" with a little heart instead of a dot.
The purpose of the two dots is to distinguish the handwritten "y" from "p" or
"g", which in some sloppy handwritings can become quite confusing. I would be
wary of all this Dutch talk of transliterating "y" as "ij". Modern reprints of
18th century texts always just substitute "i" in words like: "bey/bei",
"frey/frei", etc.
This is not really as profound a phenomenon as some seem to thing. After all,
we used to use the long "s" in English, but don't anymore (see the printed word
"Congress" in the U.S. Constitution). Times change and so does orthography.
___
Thomas Kerth, Stony Brook, New York
"Nun, o Unsterblichkeit bist du ganz mein!" (Kleist)
Hofmann Family
The ˙ or y" (umlaut) can be found in records in the 1700s and early
1800s in nearly all areas of what is now Germany. I find them in
Württemburg, Hessen, Hannover, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg as well as
Holland. I also question the Dutch connection. Near the border with
Holland I have seen it changed to ij, but never in most places where it
simply becomes "y" or "i".
someone wrote..
> %> Thank you Max, Siegfried, Celia and Uwe for your very informative
> %> explanations. It would never have occurred to me that the "y was
> %actually
> %> ij,
Charles Hofmann
--
Visit our Homepage at
http://www.azstarnet.com/~hofmann/index.html
Links included to LUTHERAN SURNAME exchange and the German Surname list
of active researchers. If you are interested in German activities in
Tucson, Arizona let us know.
Jim Eggert
> I have been told that the y umlaut does not exist in the present
> German language.
The y dieresis or ij ligature is actually mentioned in the
soc.genealogy.german FAQ, available at
<http://www.genealogy.net/gene/>
--
=Jim Eggert Egg...@LL.mit.edu
maXchulte
>The two dots over the "y" are an orthographic convention and do not indicate a
>separate sound, such as "y" vs. "ÿ", the way we have "a" vs. "ä". It's like the
>way some teenagers used to dot the "i" with a little heart instead of a dot.
>The purpose of the two dots is to distinguish the handwritten "y" from "p" or
>"g", which in some sloppy handwritings can become quite confusing.
This would make sense in another area but not in this area around
Osnabrueck and Muenster towards the Dutch border, where local accent
doesn't differ to much and where it probably did even less a few
hundreds of years ago, according to some of the handwriting. The
clerks who did the handwriting might have been of Dutch (not much of a
state then) origin if it where in calvinistic/protestant
church-records, but I can show you examples of around 1770 in catholic
church-records as well.
Also, there is not much need to distinguish y from p or g in an affix
like "meijer".
> I would be
>wary of all this Dutch talk of transliterating "y" as "ij". Modern reprints of
>18th century texts always just substitute "i" in words like: "bey/bei",
>"frey/frei", etc.
>This is not really as profound a phenomenon as some seem to thing. After all,
>we used to use the long "s" in English, but don't anymore (see the printed word
>"Congress" in the U.S. Constitution). Times change and so does orthography.
I guess that there was speech before writing and since we cannot
exactly recall how pronunciation was in those times and places and
since there were no strict rules for writing a language and since
German and Dutch at that time and that place might not yet have
existed as seaprately as they do now, my guess is that the writing
person tried to adapt his writing as much as possible as to what he
heard or thought he had heard. Another clerk means another writing.
In times before 1770 the affix "meyer" can also be found written as
"mejer". Another ear or another pronunciation or just another way of
representing the same sound ?.
We often see that in families that have split around the two
countries, that the Dutch branch uses "Whatevermeijer" where their
distant German relatives use "Whatevermeyer".
maXchulte