I haven't spent much time on my maternal family history, but recently I was re-reading a genealogy book on one line of my grandfather's family. The book, written by Alvera Brookman Dunn in 2005, is entitled, "Jacob Hell/Clear and Margaret Davis Clear and their Descendants."
Oh, did I mention that our family name was HELL? Not a great name for children to defend, so I'm glad it was changed a few generations before I was born. According to Mrs. Dunn, the Hells were a German family who arrived in Pennsylvania about 1740 and settled among other German families. But, as descendants moved out from the German community, "they found that their family name, Hell, was not as acceptable in America as it had been in Germany. Gradually, they adopted the name 'Clear', one of the literal meanings of the German 'Hell.' By 1850 no one used the name 'Hell' unless it appeared in a land sale transacted earlier. The former name 'Hell' became 'hush-hush' and within two generations was forgotten..."
Mrs. Dunn was able to verify this information in Preble County, Ohio in the 1980s. But no legal name change from 'Hell' to 'Clear' has been found.
For those who are descended from Lester and Pearl (Carlisle) Smith, this is the family line of Lester's mother, Margaret Clear. (Jacob Hell/Clear and Margaret (Davis) Clear, John H. Clear and Ludicia "Louisa" (Graham) Clear, Margaret Clear and Luther Smith; Lester Lee Smith).
This book is filled with family history information that I'll explore in future entries.
Thanks for this interesting story.
ReplyDeleteFascinating how words in different languages have different meanings, and how meanings change over time! If only words meant the same thing in all languages through all time! But, then, the discipline of history wouldn't be as interesting or useful, and the discipline of comparative linguistics wouldn't even exist . . .
A related and also interesting side-note, from the perspective of a beer nerd such as I is that there's a renowned German beer style called helles lager:
"When the golden and clean lagers of Plzen (Bohemia) became all the rage in the mid-1800s, München brewers feared that Germans would start drinking the Czech beer vs. their own. Munich Helles Lager was their answer to meet the demand. A bit more malty, they often share the same spicy hop characters of Czech Pils, but are a bit more subdued and in balance with malts. 'Helles is German for 'bright.'"
Prost!
(As an aside, I'd rather have the last name of "Hell" or even "Hillegas" than the first name of "Richard.")
I wonder if this is my family. My grandmother her husband and children moved from Germany to the USA when my father was little. My grandmother maidan name was Hell.
ReplyDeleteI never meet my grandparents and know nothing about them.
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