Edit: The English preposition "or" in Westphalian German records

Question

EDIT: At this time it looks 99% sure that the "Or" in LDS records from Westphalia is an insertion by the transcriber and does not appear in the original

A Tussenvoegsel is a proper name that takes the form GivenName Surname Or Surname. That is the proper surname, it is NOT a statement of uncertainty..

If you encounter one on a profile, do NOT alter it. The major clue is that the "Or" is capitalized, not lowercase. If you have doubts contact the profile manager or examine the source material.

They turn up in NW German (and border countries) names from the 900s to 1850s

Lots lots more at the link: The Double Surname Prefix (Affix, Tussenvoegsel) 'Or'

Posting as a question as people have been asking about and/or altering profiles, so I am thinking it is time to remind everyone. Thanks

Comments

The link does not work for me.

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Edited to link the question to the space page.

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Thanks.

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Folks The word and it's use in nomenclature has it's origins in pre-Charlemagne times with it's roots in the Low Franconian of the Salian Franks that settled this entire region in the 3rd and 4th centuries, not to mention medieval and earlier concepts of a person's relationship to land vs other persons, etc..

Attempts to understand it and it's use in modern terms and with modern concepts like Dutch vs German, or Holland vs Germany, or self vs place, have no meaning and do not help understanding.

For those who wish to really understand it's origins and use I invite you to pursue that rigourously; it is fascinating and rewarding stuff.

However, the point of this whole thread is that the term was used, is a legitimate name, often appears in geneaologies involving the Rhineland, and should never be altered in the misconception that it is an english preposition or some such other failure to understand what it actually is.
 

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It seems I must eat my words, although they were said in good faith based on some misleading information I had received.

Regardless,  at this time it looks 99% sure that the "Or" in LDS records from Westphalia is an insertion of the English preposition by the transcriber and does not appear in the original.

I will be sharing images of original records plus a statement by an LDS arbitrator in a post that I hope will be hellpful to everyone encountering this in future.

My apologies to all

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Always tough to do, but I appreciate you coming back squarely on this.

I had wondered why it would be "Or" and not "Oder".

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Thanks for this, Mike!

Answer 1

In Dutch name between first and last name ,as  Von De.

Comments

Tussenvoegsels in Dutch names are separte words, not capitalized, and not abbreviated.  The correct Dutch name would be "van der Molen" not "Vandermolen", "Van Der Molen" or "v. d. Molen".

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That may well be. There are very few true Dutch in my working on NW Germany. However, in the NW German usage the "Or" is capitalized.

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Mike,

Do you have examples of German language records, (so not an English version with "Oder" translated to "Or"?

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WAY too many examples. Here is one where  you see just one of the problems, viz father and son have reversed the surnames.

No, as all of the references I provided indicate, it is not a translation of anything, it is the actual and correct form of the name.

It is a vestage of the low franconian dialect of the Salian Franks that settled this whole region, and which was the precursor of the Dutch and Frisian dialects, but largely displaced by German in the Rhineland.

Answer 2

What I am wondering is if it really is "Or" in the German names.

Shouldn't it be "Zu", which is also mentioned on the page?

Comments

As the page discusses, it is both (and others). but In the regions mentioned "Or" was the dominant form (Dutch/Friesien influence, or common origin, something like that), but of course people moved around,

That said, working with a predominantly Westfalian ancestry, I have seen "Or" dozens and dozens of times.. "Zu" not at all, nor any of the other forms mentioned except for one "van der", and von of course.

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In Dutch names "or" is never used, it is not a Dutch word. See my answer.

Answer 3

Tussenvoegsel is a Dutch word and Dutch only. It NEVER is "or", but can be the Dutch word "of" (which would translate to "or" in English!). There is a limited set of names with "of", like the 31 listed at this site. The explanation given there is:

Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink has a rare type of surname, but not a unique one. The Netherlands has a total of 31 surnames with the insert "of".
Most "of" names arose because people - for whatever reason - were known under two different names. In the introduction of civil status at the beginning of the nineteenth century, only one of those names was usually registered, but in some cases apparently no choice was made.

For example, the ancestors of Jan owned the Twente farms Vennegoor and Hesselink. Since farmer families in East Twente used the name of their farm as a family name, they could be called both Vennegoor and Hesselink. The registrar of the civil registry then decided to record Vennegoor of Hesselink.

Some Dutch names do not mention the Dutch word, but the English word "of". This applies to Hamilton of Silvertonhill and Agnes of Jesus and probably also to Bakarelos of Cholis and Panka of Kefalloniti. I wonder where these last two Greek-English names originated.

Comments

Yes, one would like to see a primary source; a digitized image.

The example given above seems to be sourced from FamilySearch transcriptions with images available only with an LDS account.

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To access the digitized images of the examples from my tree you need to be a full LDS member, which I am not, nor am I about to be.

Have you read the sources that I cite in the page discussing it?

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 Jan Terink

My only hesitation is that you have simply done a translation, whereas I got tussenvoegsel from the sources I cite, professional and/or experienced genealogists, who specifically use the term to describe this situation.

My concern is that within the field tussenvoegsel may have meaning that is generally understood , whereas Einfügung would be a portmanteau that would baffle rather than clarify.

As I have repeatedly stated, this IS NOT a German or German language thing, it is a vestige of Low Franconian, the precursor of Dutch (not German), that persisted in the Rhinelands, but died out, or perhaps was never really used in what is now Holland.

As such using a German word arguably makes even less sense even though the occurrence of the names are in a region that is now Germany, a nation state that did not exist until after the naming convention had ceased to be used.

 

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Mike,

"whereas I got tussenvoegsel from the sources I cite, professional and/or experienced genealogists, who specifically use the term to describe this situation." 

I checked all "sources" you cited on your free space, and could not find a single occurrence of the word "tussenvoegsel" in a genealogical page! Only wikipedia mentions it and defines it in a way clearly other than the use you describe:

• You: Given Name Surname tussenvoegsel Surname
• Wikipedia: Given Name tussenvoegsel Surname

So give me an explicit link to a genealogical source referring to "Or" as "tussenvoegsel"

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Here is an explanation of "tussenvoegsel".

It is the very first link in the article I linked you to

It lists dozens of examples, maybe 60?, but it is not a definitive list and is not exhaustive.

I never said or implied "Or" was the only tussenvoegsel,merely that it was a tussenvoegsel.

It applies to names in Belgium, Irish, French, German, Scotland AND Holland, and others.

All you had to do was read what I posted. kindly do so in future.

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Mike,

I did not ask for a list of Dutch tussenvoegsels, I am Dutch, I know all about them.

Where do you think I got this:

• Wikipedia: Given Name tussenvoegsel Surname

It is short for what the English (sic!) wikipedia page says:

A tussenvoegsel  in Dutch linguistics is a word that is positioned between a person's first name and the main part of the last name

If your interpretation of "tussenvoegsel" was right wikipedia would say

A tussenvoegsel  in Dutch linguistics is a word that is positioned between  parts of the last name

Also your precious "Or" is not found in the list of tussenvoegsels. Logical, because the page is about Dutch tussenvoegsels, and "Or" is not a Dutch tussenvoegsel. So that link to wikipedia bears no relevance to your "Or" theory.

And again, I asked for a specific original document where the "Or" construct is present, e.g. a German language church record of a baptism, marriage, burial. Not a transcription thereof. It is sound genealogical practice to not trust transcriptions blindly. Transcriptions may not reflect the original document verbatim. 

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Indeed, my experience of LDS transcriptions of Swedish records is that they frequently anglicize what they glean from the records.

In the Swedish case the worst thing is those transcribers who consistently ignore the fact that Swedish patronymics were gendered, up until patronymics started being converted into inheritable surnames in the second half of the 19th century. Some transcribers give ALL women -son names instead of -dotter names, even when the name is clearly written out in the record. Since Swedish curch records are available for free, this can be checked.

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Something like that also applies with transcriptions of Dutch records. In Dutch prepositions are lower case, but often transcribed (LDS only) with leading uppercase (e.g. van der Vliet ==> Van Der Vliet). I protested that years ago, but no action was taken. Worst thing I saw was tens of thousands of Amsterdam Holocaust victims being transcribed as having died in Amsterdam instead of in the recorded extermination camp (Auschwitz, Sobibor, etc.).

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If you are Dutch than you should know  that  Dutch linguistics includes the study of the Dutch language and it's dialects, which of course as the source you cite quite correctly notes, includes the Rhineland:

Distribution of the Dutch language and its dialects in Western Europe

Which I have said right from the start.

But you may well be right that strict application of the definition of a tussenvoegsel may mean it does not apply here, but that totally and entirely depends on what one understands " the main part of the last name" to mean precisely.

Regardless this whole exchange has been tiring without being enlightening, and as a result I will substitute "affix" for tussenvoegsel in all future discussions since it is not absolutely clear that it fits the definition.

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I did not mean to cite, just copied some text from the wikipedia page. 

You are diverting again into wild theories about the meaning of words in the Dutch language that you do not read or speak.

To me it is absolutely clear that the Dutch word "tussenvoegsel" should not be used in the context of your "Or" theory.

And again you do not provide any original record with "Or". I would say the only "Or"s that will be seen are English transcriptions of the German word "oder".

That said, I do not doubt that in Germany people at some time could be known by multiple surnames. As I reported early in this dispute that also was the case in the Netherlands, even recorded in the civil registration, with surnames separated by "of", the Dutch word for German "oder" and English "or".

Answer 4

Is this in a set of guidelines somewhere?

The Denmark Project has a set of guidelines on naming patterns and how to reflect them in WikiTree name fields.

The European Aristocrats Project has some similar for how to reflect historical nobility naming patterns in our name fields.

Do we have something similar for Dutch naming customs and reflecting them in WikiTree name fields? For German ones? For French, Spanish or other naming patterns?

Do we have a space in our Help pages that gather together naming and naming field guidelines? I can’t remember and I’m on my iPad mini today which makes checking difficult.  Clean a thon will be coming up soon and it sure would be nice to have such a collection handy for that and also for Data Doctor work and just in general to help those of us who work in multiple ethnic groups or have melting pot ancestors.

Comments

Hi Mary,

I cannot find a set of name field guidelines for the German Roots project, but many projects have, and they are pointed to on this free space page:

Name Field Guidelines

Answer 5

I would be very careful with any dogmatic interpretation of early family names. The earlier in time the less certain any family names are. While nobility in the German language area had established family names from the 11th century on, patricians and other citizens followed later, with a general use of family names in these circles by the early 15th century. In farming areas family names were often established only in the 17th - 18th century. In Friesland (with Frisian one of the closest relatives of Old Franconian) family names were established by law only in the 19th century. Prior to these very general time frames additional names to the given name were more or less attributes to help separate the affairs of people with the same given names, were highly local, and changed frequently according to circumstances.

As to the capitalization of the "Or" I would like to see some original sources as this would be highly unusual and contrary to general use in German names. Von, zu, von und zu, auf etc. as parts of names are all not capitalized except when at the beginning of a sentence.

Comments

Thanks for chiming in, Helmut.

I spent some interesting time yesterday browsing the category of Frisian politicians - https://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategory:Frysk_politikus - lots of "surnames" with two or more parts, but no "Or".

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Helmut, thank you for your thoughts, but:

1) Pls see the sources I link in the original post.(really, why does no one do that?)

2) I think I have said this at least 6 times, maybe more. This is NOT a German thing, which is why it is not found all over Germany. It is only from the Rhineland because:

It is a Salian Frankish thing (which included what is now the Rhineland) dating from pre-Charlemange coming from Lower Franconian, the precursor to the Dutch (and Frisian languages), which is why discussing German language and German practices is not only not relevant; in fact it is counterproductive.

These constant attempts to understand a 1500 year old practice based on geopolitical boundaries that are barely decades old, and modern languages not much older than that, is not helping.

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 Eva Ekeblad

Have you read the sources I link from the source page in the original post?

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Yes, Mike Kaulbars, I have read the sources you cite.

None of them lists Or as the binder word between two last names - "or" only appears as a conjunction to separate the last two words in the list.

I don't think anyone in this discussion debates the existence of variously constructed "farm name" last names in the area you are researching. Farm names are truly interesting - and a challenge to the genealogist, as well as for WikiTree name fields. The fluidity that your sources describe reminds me of the farm names used in Dalarna province in Sweden. These are, however, a different problem when it comes to WikiTree fields, because they are prefixed to the given name-patronymic combo.

You have still not given any primary source for the actual use of Or in the double last names for about 20 profiles you manage, that have been signalled by the error report.

I have checked several, not all, and the only sources I saw were FamilySearch LDS transcriptions. These often introduce words or naming practices in English into records from other language cultures. In my experience not all transcribers do this, but when there this problem occurs, it affects whole swathes of a collection, transcribed by the same person.

I suppose that if you did have access to a digitized image of a primary record using Or between two last names, you would already have provided it?

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1) Actually the discussion thread from 2013 is explicitly about the "Or" affix, but it is true that as far as I know Helmut is not an acknowledged authority

2) When you first enquired about images I said that for the profiles I manage you can only get them if you are a full LDS member, which I am not.

I am now seeing if I can get one or more through some other path.
 

3) As I understand it the authoritative work on this subject is Minert, Roger P. “Surname Changes in Northwestern Germany.” German Genealogical Digest 16 (Spring 2000): 6-17. which I am in the process of trying to acquire, but even IF available they will not shi outside the US, so I have to arrange an intermediary.

I too very much want a definitive answer to this question, but if the explanation offered by the sources I do cite seem to fall short, they are far superior to the suggestions made in this thread.

The speculations here make no attempt to explain why, for example, this form is common in the Rhineland and Westpahalia (sometimes seen in Bohemia, but rare), and nowhere else. Every other alleged explanation should mean it would be equally common in records throughout pre-19th Cent Germany , and it isn't.

Anyway, wish me luck in hunting those things down.

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With regards to the regional existence of farm or house names see "Hausnamen als Namen für Personen" in the German Wikipedia article "Hausname". Certainly not a scholarly work but pretty succinct in condensing what is known about German use and regional distribution:

"In ganz Mitteldeutschland und in den Gebieten um die bayerisch/österreichische Grenze, ganz Österreich und im deutschsprachigen Südtirol waren und sind solche Namen gebräuchlich. In Sudetenland waren sie bis zur Vertreibung der deutschstämmigen Bevölkerung im Jahr 1946 in Gebrauch."

In all of middle Germany and in the area around the Bavarian/Austrian border, all of Austria and in the German speaking South Tyrol were and are such names in use. In the Sudetenland they were used until the expulsion of the population of German descent in the year 1946.

 

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Thank you for that, but we really need something that very specifically clears up whether "Or" is an affix from the low Franconian, or an English preposition inserted by transcribers as a substitution for "oder" or some such.

I have one source that specifically mentions "Or" from Bohemia as a vulgo affix. I had a good source discussing it for the Rhineland, but like too many internet things it just disappeared, and I very stupidly had not kept track of author/title or anything that would allow me  to perhaps find a copy somewhere else.

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I can definitively and confidently state that you will not find a single Bohemian record that uses "Or". You will find "vulgo", "vel", even the plain "oder" or "auch", rarely "nebo" or "čili", all translated into English meaning "or". All still existing church registers, land registers, and seigniorial registers in the Czech Republic have been (or are still in the process of being) digitized and made available online. There is plenty of primary source material to peruse which I have done extensively since it has become available online and before that in the original books in the respective archives and there simply is no instance of the use of "Or".

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You will have to take that up with the author of this blog post Vulgo Surnames. 

1) Based on skimming a handful of other posts the author seems to be pretty knowledgeable and familiar with the field;
2) I can't imagine that they say they saw it in Bohemian records unless they truly believe they did. It may well be worth tracking that down whatever the truth is, since it is worth knowing for sure either way.

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Rest assured that no Bohemian records were ever kept in English and the use of "or" and "known" in the sentence

Sometimes the word “vulgo” appears in-between two surnames, sometimes “or”, and sometimes “known”.

should be a give-away that we are dealing with a translation and not an original wording. Neither "or" nor "known" are words associated with any of the three languages Bohemian records were kept in, Czech, German, and Latin.

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IF, and only IF,  you assume "or" can only be the english preposition (which only came into being in the 1500s), then that would be true.

"Known" is pretty indisputably english, and yes, that is clearly a translation, and pretty much says that "or" is as well in this case (the lowercase was also an indication).

I make no such assumption about the Westphalian records. One only ever sees "Or", always capitalized, and never "known" or any other english word or abbreviation. Always "Or", and only in Westphaia (+/-).

I suspect "Or" is a vestige of lower Franconian from the Salian Franks, probably derived from the same root as "Op" in Dutch, hence why it is found almost exclusively in Westphalia.

But that is what I am trying to nail down with certainty, either with images of the originals and/or authoritative documentation by an acknowledged authority ... not speculation, hypotheses and assumptions.

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My comment is regarding the blog you referenced and the discussed usage in Bohemia.

For the rest of your argument I believe you really would have to provide original sources to convince anybody.

Addendum: Let me amend that, I would also be more accepting with a secondary source in German.

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Yes, and I am a little red faced at not seeing the problems with that post right from the start as they are pretty obvious.

I am looking at seeing if I can get images through Archion.de. I have also ordered the complete German Genealogical Digest as I understand Vol 16(1) has the definiteive paper on Westphalian name  affixs.

Regardless of what the answer is, I guess I am just rather surprised that there is not already a definitive resource about this issue given how common the multiple names linked by "Or" are in the transcriptions. I know it has come up more than once here at WikiTree.

Sigh