researching family name

[powderpuff]

Here is a baffling question, which I wonder if anyone can answer.

My sisters and I were born under the name of Hinderliter.

According to our fathers birth certificate, he was born under the name of Hinterliter

My grand-father was a German immigrant, to the United States, who may have come under the name of Hinterlichter.

My grand-father made sure that my father could speak not only regular (common) German, but also "High" German.

The only thing I am sure of is that grand-father was named Norman Elliot (probable spelling)

According to Berlin, until I have the exact spelling, of grand-fathers name, the German records section cannot say WHERE the man came from.

Berlin says that I must have the name of the port, where the man embarked, for America, in order to track his path.

Are there any German immigrants, or visitors, to the United States, who recognize ANY version of my family name?

In case anyone is interested, I THINK the man came to America between 1920, and 1930. He was in the United States, during 1930 since my father was born, in Detroit, Michigan, in September, 1930.

Does anyone recognize any of this information?

[DragonSlayer]

Here is a baffling question, which I wonder if anyone can answer.

My sisters and I were born under the name of Hinderliter.

According to our fathers birth certificate, he was born under the name of Hinterliter

My grand-father was a German immigrant, to the United States, who may have come under the name of Hinterlichter.

My grand-father made sure that my father could speak not only regular (common) German, but also "High" German.

The only thing I am sure of is that grand-father was named Norman Elliot (probable spelling)

According to Berlin, until I have the exact spelling, of grand-fathers name, the German records section cannot say WHERE the man came from.

Berlin says that I must have the name of the port, where the man embarked, for America, in order to track his path.

Are there any German immigrants, or visitors, to the United States, who recognize ANY version of my family name?

In case anyone is interested, I THINK the man came to America between 1920, and 1930. He was in the United States, during 1930 since my father was born, in Detroit, Michigan, in September, 1930.

Does anyone recognize any of this information?

Have you tried Ancestry.com? I do want to welcome you to the forum and wish good luck to with your search!

[GordonS]

There is a Norman Hinderliter, age 30 with wife Mayona age 21, living as a boarder at 3011 Lycaste Ave. in Detroit while employed as an auto worker when the 1930 census was taken. He was reported as being born in Illinois to parents who were both born in Illinois. It appears that this couple had been married approximately one year at the time of the census; there were no children (but this was taken before September).

In the 1920 census Norman Hinderliter, age 20, is shown living in Fulton County, Illinois with his parents Andrew & Lulu. and with younger brothers Erwin, Elmer & Russell. But Norman is shown here as being born in Missouri, while his father was from Wisconsin and his mother from Illinois.

The 1900 census confirms the 1920 census, with the family shown to be living in Franklin County, Missouri. The parents had been married ten years at the time, and Norman had older siblings Edna, Arthur, Emmett & one more who had died by this time. The father was a miner, born in Wisc. of Wisconsin-born parents, or so says the 1900 census. [The 1910 census, also in Franklin County, shows that both Andrew and Lulu had fathers born in Pennsylvania.]

Norman's WWI draft registration card shows him to have been born on 8 June 1899. He was living at Cuba, Fulton Co., Illinois (as was his father Andrew), and he was a miner for the Logan Coal Company. The date of the registration was 12 Sept. 1918.

So it would appear that your Hinderliter family was well-established in this country, and that it may be another branch of your tree that shows relatively recent immigration from Germany. Ancestry.com has been the source of much of this survey, and Norman appears in a family tree there as the spouse of Mayona, who does not appear to have German ancestry. Unfortunately, no parents are indicated for Norman as the entire emphasis of this tree is on his wife.

Nevertheless, Ancestry.com does have the names of two persons who are researching the Hinderliter name, and there is a Hinderliter mailing list at Rootsweb.com (maintained by Ancestry.com). If you go to the HINDERLITER-L mailing list and look for Carol Hinderliter Pattison, writing in 2005, she claims that the name was originally Hinterleitner. When translated literally that would mean "the mountain side to the rear" or "the farther mountain side." Carol would seem to be your distant cousin, as Norman's father Andrew shows up in an 1870 Iowa County, Wisconsin census as the son of Samuel Hinderliter, a lead miner from Pennsylvania. Samuel is also her ancestor, and she gives seven more male ancestors, plus full names of wives until the earliest generation.

You will have to establish for yourself whether this is your correct lineage, but contacting other family researchers should help you to do this with relative ease (a pun? ).

[powderpuff]

Thank you for the reply, and the information. As for Ancestry.com, I HAVE tried this, and I was un-happy with the results. Basically, when I started a "tree, based upon what I know, the computer made NO EFFORT AT ALL, in locating my family. All that I received was MORE empty boxes, in which the computer told me to list information. Shoot!, if I HAD the information, I would not have signed up. What a scam Ancestry.com is. Sorry if this is a blow, but it is the reason I am trying the German-American Kongress.

[Amelia]

Welcome to the forum powderpuff! I will leave the geneaology magic to Gordon and KindvonRuber and such, but glad to have you here!

[DragonSlayer]

Thank you for the reply, and the information. As for Ancestry.com, I HAVE tried this, and I was un-happy with the results. Basically, when I started a "tree, based upon what I know, the computer made NO EFFORT AT ALL, in locating my family. All that I received was MORE empty boxes, in which the computer told me to list information. Shoot!, if I HAD the information, I would not have signed up. What a scam Ancestry.com is. Sorry if this is a blow, but it is the reason I am trying the German-American Kongress.

Powderpuff, may I say that I'm sorry. I should have realized that you probably tried Ancestry.com and were unsuccessful. I do hope you find the info that you're looking for and that you'll be a regular poster here at DANK!

[powderpuff]

Thank you. Ofcourse, you had no way of knowing what, if any, sites that I may have tried, previously. I guess that I just have to keep on searching. I dont know about you, but I find this process very difficult, especially when I dont know exactly WHAT SPELLING to look under. Just curious, how many other German Americans do you know, who are having the same problem tracing their roots, due to name changes?

[Amelia]

MANY!

[KindvonRüber]

Thank you. Ofcourse, you had no way of knowing what, if any, sites that I may have tried, previously. I guess that I just have to keep on searching. I dont know about you, but I find this process very difficult, especially when I dont know exactly WHAT SPELLING to look under. Just curious, how many other German Americans do you know, who are having the same problem tracing their roots, due to name changes?

Welcome to the forum!

If its a German name, it was mis-spelled and maybe changed, several time over throughout the decades. Genealogy takes a lot of patience and perseverance. Some luck doesn't hurt, either. It took me a while to get the hang of Ancestry.com, but it was time well spent. Aside from that, there are several old-school methods that require more travel and time, but can be more fun.

1) With the people whose names and residences you know, and if you know their approximate date of death, check the obits from local newspapers. These sometimes contain brief biographies, along with the listing of spouses, children, etc. If a particular church is listed for the funeral, contact them and ask to peruse pertinent records. This is more like to be productive if its a denomination with a bureaucracy and mandatory record keeping, like the Roman Catholics. (If they are Catholic, the local Diocesan or Archdiocesan archives can also be very helpful, in that they are the repository for all the parish records in their area.)

2) City Directories, the predecessors to telephone books, can also be a treasure trove. Many are arranged in both alphabetical order and by street address. Often, relatives will live near each other, so cross-referencing each listing can help. City directories also carry the occupation of the person listed.

3)Small town newsapers are worth burrowing into, as well. If you can establish that an ancestor lived, for example, in Iowa County, Wisconsin, the local papers will contain more news about who had visitors, who travelled where for a funeral, wedding and birth notices are more informative, etc.

4) Keep a file (cyber and/or hard copy) of references you are not sure of, at the moment.

5) Follow some of the leads, epecially the others researching the same name, that Gordon provided. At the very least, they can help you narrow your field.

It might take years of "banging your head against a wall", but when you do make a discovery or establish a link, it will be all the sweeter.

Alles gute,

John

[Hamburger]

Yes, there are a lot of names that were changed when peole came to the US from Europe. Partly because they themselves were unable to spell correctly, and partly because the emigration officers just didn't care enough.

I have googled the different names here in Germany and came up with the following:

Hinderliter... not a single one hit in Germany. It is a name known in America only.

Hinterliter... quite a few hits (1,390) in Germany.

Hinderlichter... not a single hit anywhere!

Hinterlichter... no hits in way of names. It is difficult because Hinterlichter means back lights, so there are many hits, but nothing I could come up with.

Hinterleitner... that's a quite common name in Germany. 61,100 hits.

I found this on a passenger's list of the SS Charlotte:
York 453 Franz Hinterleithner 27 m carpenter Austria Ohio

The only thing that puzzles me, though, is that your grand-father was apparently named Norman Elliot Hinterlichter. Neither Norman nor Elliot are German names, and were not at those times, so he must have changed them by that time.

As for passenger's lists, I was registered at the Ellis Island lists, and had somem decent results. I am including a list of links that might be worth a try: http://www.cantows.de/ahnen/Links.htm#Schiff.

Sorry I couldn't do more for you. And, welcome to this forum!