NAMES AND SURNAMES

    Wives are listed under their married names, with the family name of the wife appearing second to last.  In this listing Ettje Adden Kleen, née Reiners, then appears as Ettje Adden Reiners Kleen.

    Note that children's names often were formed to indicate the identity of the father, a patronymic system.. Thus Hinrich Roolfs Neemann was the son of Roolf Harms Neemann who, in like manner of naming, would have been the son of a Harm ____ Neemann (a valuable aid in a genealogical search!).  The "full name" then consisted of "patronymic + surname".

   Surnames were not always recognized as necessary in Ostfriesland, until mandated in 1811 under Napoleonic rule.  A decree then required each family to register a permanent surname.  The earliest records used only the patronymic name, identifying each child through a second name taken from their father's first name.  In later records the surname was added to the chosen patronymic name

   The notation for a family that shows no surname in the records will show the eventual surname in parentheses, e.g., Jacob Harm Hindrichs (Kleen), when the eventual surname can be identified.  The earliest members of the ancestor tree (e.g., Simon Cornelius, d.o.b. 1726 ) clearly are associated with families that had not yet adopted surnames.

  For much more information about naming practices and patterns, click here.