So what the heck kinda name is Fenstermacher?

As you might have guessed, it is a German last name.  It means "Window Maker."  (Don't believe me?  Go to www.fenstermacher.de and see if you can figure out what they manufacture... :)

The most common variation is "Fenstermaker" but I have seen "Fenstemaker" "Fenstemacher" and "Fenstermacker" in my travels.  But the original name in (probably) all cases was Fenstermacher.

Fenstermacher is what is called a "Pennsylvania Dutch" name.   Pennsylvania Dutch is a subculture here in Pennsylvania, and is also found in Ohio and Indiana as far as I know. 

It is a common misperception that the "Dutch" in "Pennsylvania Dutch" refers to people from Holland, but this is incorrect... 

This snippet of info is from www.fenstysforum.org - owned by Roy Fenstermaker, so far, the only other Fensty I have located on the Internet.   (Though my ego requires me to point out, I was the first Fensty to appear anywhere on the internet, I had been doing web searches for as long as web searches existed for other Fensty's.....)

Philip Fenstermacher came to Philadelphia on the ship Samuel in the year 1737. He was followed a year later from the Palatinate of the Rhine by his father Mathias Fenstermacher and several brothers. They settled in Berks county, Pennsylvania just above Philadelphia.

My family as well as Roy's were also descended from this family of Fenstermachers...

OK, so why Pennsylvania Dutch, if these ancestors were from Germany?  The answer is the same as why some Fenstermachers are now Fenstermakers, etc - the term was originally "Pennsylvania Deutsch" because that is what these folks called themselves - after all, they had migrated from Deutschland....