Racial Question re: surnames

**gnome** · July-08-11, 04:29 PM

Sorry in advance if this topic makes anyone uncomfortable, but maybe someone can clarify something I've been wondering about.

In reading the Grand Rapids reports on the Dantzler guy who killed 7 people before biting the barrel himself, I was a bit surprised the guy was a black guy. I thought maybe his Germanic [[ Danzig) surname indicated he was bi-racial and acquired his last name from his white father.

Then I looked at OTIS and found about 15 Dantzler's all guests of the Governor, and all of them black.

Now maybe there is something I don't understand, but I have only met one black guy with a Germanic surname. If you see the name Hessberg, a Schmidt, trotmann, Gresshaber, Wittgenstein or Istok you can be pretty sure the person has a little Wagner running through their veins.

I've always assumed this had something to do with northern Europeans having a problem with the entire slavery issue. This assumption is based on my understanding that most of the freedmen took the surnames of their former owners. The English and Irish seemingly had fewer issues with the shameful institution and hence we now have most AA with last names like Johnson, Bailey, Kilpatrick and Ferguson.

Cassis Clay famously referred to his name as being a "slave name" when he joined NOI and took Muhamid Ali as his new identity.

**gnome** · July-08-11, 04:33 PM

Continued...

So, what about my thinking is wrong here?

Anyone know an AA with a Germanic/Nordic surname?

And WTF is wrong with the Dantzler clan?

**Meddle** · July-08-11, 04:34 PM

I've always wondered why there are so many whites named "Black" and so many blacks named "White".

But yeah, I've seen some AAs with Scottish surnames too.

**oladub** · July-08-11, 04:49 PM

Most common last names for Blacks in the U.S.

Dantzler is the 8357th most common name in the US. There are 3640 Dantzlers of which 70% are black. http://names.mongabay.com/data/9000.html

lilpup · July-08-11, 04:52 PM

Dantzler Plantation Holly Hill, South Carolina

over 16,000 acres, 90 slaves listed on the 1860 census

**Meddle** · July-08-11, 04:55 PM

That's what I was going to ask Lil.

That 3640 may not all be directly related but most of the families have a common background

lilpup · July-08-11, 05:13 PM

most likely more than one slaveholder in the tree -

The First Families of Orangeburgh District, South Carolina

**Locke09** · July-08-11, 05:33 PM

There were not a lot of German slaveholders, so it makes sense that there would now be more African-Americans with that surname than Caucasians.

I have an unusual surname in my family that hails from the South. As near as I can tell from research, it is almost 100% found among African-Americans now. Everyone in Michigan who has that surname has turned out to be family.

We really, really mean it when we tell our kids to stay out of trouble so they don't give our family a bad name!

lilpup · July-08-11, 05:33 PM

another point - Northern/Germanic/Scandinavian immigrants settled more in the northern states and most arrived much later whereas the Brits, being primary colonists, were well established early on

Wikipedia says of South Carolina: The English colony of the Province of Carolina was started in Charleston) in 1670, with wealthy planters and their slaves, coming from the British Caribbean colony of Barbados.

**oladub** · July-08-11, 07:32 PM

Locke, Or anyone else, go to http://names.mongabay.com/ and put in your surname in the 'search' box in the upper left hand corner. The top couple of links provided should shed some information on your name by numbers and race.

**Meddle** · July-08-11, 11:19 PM

I am the last of our bloodline. When I go, there will be no more of us.

Best gift I can think of to give the world.

**Gistok** · July-09-11, 12:52 AM

Hey Zwerg [[German for Gnome)....

Istok is not a German name.... it's Hungarian.

My father's family [[originating in the Rhineland) was called "Osten".

During the time of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa [[1740-80) a lot of land in the Balkans which fell under Austrian control once the Turks were expelled from that part of Europe during the 17th and 18th century... and free land and travel down the Danube was promised to German settlers. Later, my fathers ancestors "Magyariziert" [[Hungarianized) the family name to Istok which is "Osten" [[or "Eastern") in Hungarian. His family lived in an exclusively German village [[there were 13 million Germans living in Eastern Europe up until the end of WWII)... so the blood lines remained German.

After my mother passed away, I found family records that showed that my fathers paternal ancestors came from the Rhineland, and the maternal ancestors came from Alsace-Lorraine [[German speaking France) and Westphalia [[northeastern Germany). Mom's ancestors were all from Franconia [[northern Bavaria).... where I was born... less than a mile from the castle where Queen Victoria's consort Albert was born.... [[founder of the UK House of Windsor),

But I digress.....

**gnome** · July-09-11, 06:02 AM

Interesting discussion folks. Those links where pretty cool. Lilpup, how did you decide to look where you looked?

I was always told that the wave of German exiles after the collapse of the 1848 German Republican Revolution, resulted in the founding of our own Republican Party. Those Germans were big on individual rights and didn't cotton to the notion of people owning people.

As a side note, "Germany" did not exist as a nation until Bismark unified the nation in 1863 or 64. Before then there was a confederation of Germanic peoples who were ruled by various Princes of dubious character.

You could think of them as gang leaders with land who charged rent from the poor shmucks living on the land. Usually, not always, but usually those Germans with "Von" before their last names indicates they were part of the pre-Bismark ruling class. Which explains why it is the rare case to know anyone here named Von Todden order Von Braun, as those Germans were not part of the '48 Revolution. The '48ers were common folk who were tired of being wee-weed on from high atop the castle walls.

Sorry about getting off topic, ...

**jiminnm** · July-09-11, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by oladub

Locke, Or anyone else, go to http://names.mongabay.com/ and put in your surname in the 'search' box in the upper left hand corner. The top couple of links provided should shed some information on your name by numbers and race.

According to them, no one has my last name.

**oladub** · July-09-11, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by jiminnm

According to them, no one has my last name.

That's a bad sign.

**Ray1936** · July-09-11, 03:48 PM

Actually, interesting topic. Thanks, all, for your thoughts.

**jiminnm** · July-09-11, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by oladub

That's a bad sign.

Maybe so, but I have a mother, aunts, uncles and cousins with the same surname who might feel otherwise. I have found only one other person in the US with the same exact name as me [[first-middle-last), not related as far as I know.

**Gistok** · July-09-11, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by jiminnm

According to them, no one has my last name.

Maybe if you dropped the first "E" after the "L".... "Schicklgruber" will indeed show up.....

Just kidding....

**Gistok** · July-09-11, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by gnome

As a side note, "Germany" did not exist as a nation until Bismark unified the nation in 1863 or 64. Before then there was a confederation of Germanic peoples who were ruled by various Princes of dubious character.

Otto Von Bismark [[one of those Von's Gnome was warning us about) Prussia's Iron Chancellor... started his planning for the reunification in the 1860s.... but it didn't become official until after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 when the German Empire [[2nd Reich) was proclaimed at the Palace of Versailles after France's humiliating defeat in 1871.... by making Wilhelm I of Prussia the first Kaiser [[Emperor) of Germany.

The titular leaders of all the other states and free cities kept their titles and political entities...[[and their rulers image remained on the coinage... which went from being called Thaler to Reichsmark) but they retained little real political power.

What ended up getting patched together to make the empire were [[about 20 or so political entities)... 4 kingdoms [[Wurttenberg, Bavaria, Saxony and Prussia), a few Grand-Duchies, some Duchies, some Principalities, and 3 City-States [[Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck).

Notably absent among the nobility at Versailles in 1871 was Bavaria's "mad king" Ludwig II, who reportedly had a hissy-fit to give up real political power to Prussia... and vis-a-vis his pouting, ended up building all his famous castles and palaces in southern Bavaria...

**firstandten** · July-09-11, 09:45 PM

There was a big time AA college football player named Woody Dantzler from Orangeburg S.C. who played at Clemson and has played for several NFL teams. He was one of Rich Rodriguez prized students when he was QB coach at Clemson.

lilpup · July-09-11, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by gnome

Interesting discussion folks. Those links where pretty cool. Lilpup, how did you decide to look where you looked?

Cast a wide net then pick out and explore further those things that look related & relevant.

In this case having done genealogy in the past helps a lot.

**oladub** · July-09-11, 10:49 PM

lilput, Your post #7 mentions Dantzler as a Swiss-German name. That is the first time I've heard of Swiss immigrants owning slaves in America.

I recently came across the following link for German geneology research to find the frequency of surnames across Germany. It sort of pinpoints the origin of rarer German names.
http://www.verwandt.de/karten/relativ/schultz.html