Anyone familiar with the Bumgarner/Baumgardner line from Germany?

Question

I have an unmerged match which has been sitting forever. Both profile managers appear to no longer be active on WikiTree. The problem is a difference in the spelling of the surname -- Bumgarner vs Baumgardner. One profile has no sources, the other has some, as well as a history of the family. Unfortunately, that history uses several variant spellings of the name.

Could sure use some help in determining correct spelling and getting this pair merged. Bumgarner-78 and Baumgardner-88

Comments

my last name is baumgardner and i wanted to do some history research on it aswell! also i originate from the heart of kentucky area.

Answer 1

I did some research on this line a long time ago but all I recall is that it is the birth surname of the famous actor James GARNER.

Answer 2

All of these names are correct, in a sense, as the spellings were variable. Baumgartner (or possibly Baumgärtner) is almost certainly the original German name. This man fits in the scope of the Palatine Migration project, so I added that project box to the page. Baumgartner and its variants is a name I've seen often among Americans of German descent. There are a number of different records of immigrant arrivals at Philadelphia of people (typically only adult men are logged) with this name, spelled in a variety of ways on the original records. A contributor to https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bumgarner-78 seems to have spent a lot of effort on trying to figure out which of several such men Peter was a child of, or whether Peter arrived earlier than 1727, when the Philadelphia record-keeping began.

One of the arrival records that some people seem to have attached this Peter B. to is that of a man named Christopher who arrived 17 August 1729 and is recorded with the surname Bumgarner (see https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/48379/PAGermanPioneersI-004423-24/319900 if you have access). This particular ship's list includes females, and Christopher Bumgarner's name is followed by Ursley Bumgarner (almost surely his wife Ursula). I've not studied this person enough to tell what basis there is (other than possibly a ouija board) for picking that father (or any other) for this Peter. There's also an adult recorded as Johann Peter Baumgartner who arrived in 1737: https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/48379/PAGermanPioneersI-004595-196/320072 and the profile lists several additional candidates that I've not run to ground.

My bottom line: Change the LNAB to Baumgartner, merge to that name,  record Bumgarner as Current Last Name, and include other variants as Other Last Names.

But maybe someone else has other information to offer...

Comments

Thanks, Ellen. I'll take a look at the links you sent and see if anyone else shows up with more information. This match has been sitting on my unmerged list for two years, it's time to get it gone.

Answer 3

I think a lot of the information in the referenced profile is conjecture. A Baumgarten is an orchard and a Baumgärtner or Baumgartner is somebody tending to it. Bumgarner would at best be the name written as heard from somebody speaking heavy dialect. And the "d" in Baumgardner seems to me to be an Anglicism. Absent any information about the birthplace in Germany the best chance of getting close to a correct spelling seems to be to start with the presumptive Swiss origin: The Bumgarner profile mentions Langnau in Switzerland.

There are several municipalities and communities have the name Langnau in Switzerland:

• Langnau am Albis, in the canton of Zürich
• Langnau bei Reiden, in the canton of Lucerne
• Langnau im Emmental, in the canton of Bern
• Langnau bei Märwil, in Affeltrangen municipality, canton of Thurgau

Swiss citizenship is derived from citizenship in a home town. The home town keeps the family registry, no matter where in Switzerland a person lives. The Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz contains family names of Swiss citizens, their home towns, the time of first appearance of the name, and, if known, where they came from, provided there are still Swiss descendants living in 1962. A first step could be checking the Familiennamenbuch for Baumgartner and spelling variants to see if any have Langnau as home town and which of the different Langnaus it would be. If there are no living descendants one would have to try to search the records of each of the Langnaus. 

Comments

Like I said, the evidence to connect this Peter Bumgarner to his origins could be based on a ouija board (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija in German Wikipedia).

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How about pin the tail on the donkey instead?

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Equally good as a source of genealogical evidence.

Answer 4

FYI, another spelling variation is Bomgardner, which I have in my family, tracing back to early 1800s in Pennsylvania, along with the rest of my Pennsylvania Dutch family.

I have a brick wall with that ancestor:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bomgardner-37

Answer 5

I have a [[Baumgardner-59 | Barbara Baumgardner]] (of whatever spelling, born c1763 probably in Maryland, but am unsure of her father, possibly a Heinrich born in Switzerland. Barbara married c1785 George Layman (of whatever spelling) and settled in Botetourt County, Virginia in the 1790s. She died there in 1852.

Answer 6

The original spelling in southern Germany and Swizerland is indeed Baumgartner (no Umlaut, usually). I have a number of people by this name in my tree, mostly in South Baden (Waldshut area), that's just across the river Rhine from some of the Swiss towns that have been mentioned.

Answer 7

One of the branches of my family is Baumgardner and yes, there have been numerous variations on the spelling in records.  The German language records, which also happen to be the earliest records, all spell the name Baumgärtner.  If Peter was born in Germany then undoubtedly this would be the correct spelling - definitely include the umlauts when changing the LNAB.