Mary Watercutter Knob (1878-1965) was the maternal grandmother of my husband's paternal grandfather, Walter Schroeder. Mary was the granddaughter of Ferdinand Waterkotte, born 26 December 1809 is Ostbevern, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.  He arrived in America on 27 Oct 1834, and made his way from the Port of New York to McLean Twp, Shelby County in Western Ohio, where he raised a family and farmed the land until his death in 1876.

I have been fortunate in researching the German roots of Watercutter family members, because they are listed in an online collection of family/local history records known as 'ortsfamilienbuches' (OFB). When I visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City this past spring, I used the information from the online source to dig up microfilms of the original church baptism, marriage, death records for many of the family members, going as far back as the early 1700s. On the images below, click to see the baptism records for Ferdinand Waterkotte (1809), his father, Bernard Heinrich Waterkotte (1775), and his grandfather, Bernard Herman Waterkotte (1734). (On the bottom two records, the parents' names are listed in the first column, the godparents (sponsors) are in the second column, and the child's name is in the third column.)

Going back through the paternal line, you can see that the spelling of the surname is consistent, until you see Bernard Herman's record at the bottom. His father is listed as Herman Sanders, which wasn't a huge surprise to me, because I had seen it on the online OFB.  My question was WHY? (Notice that the male sponsor is Bernard Waterkotte, so there must be some connection to a Waterkotte family here.)

I asked my question in the German Genealogy Facebook group to see if anyone more experienced than me had any insight into why the family name may have changed. I posted a photo of Bernard Herman's younger brother's baptism record, where the father is listed as Herman Sanders g. Waterkotte. One knowledgeable gentleman in the group told me that the 'g' stood for gennant, which means 'called.' He also explained that some people had two surnames; one acquired from the father in the traditional sense and another Hausname. The Hausname may have been acquired if a family had inherited from, bought or lived on some land of another family by that name OR perhaps if his mother married another man after his father died.  INDEED, using the online OFB records, I found that Bernard Herman's mother, Margaretha Lange, did remarry in 1741. However, the man she married was named Jobst Heinrich Dalhoff.  Margaretha had children with Mr. Dalhoff and those children's surnames were STILL Waterkotte. This makes me conjecture that the Waterkotte surname came from the land or house they were living on/in.  So, the descendants of both Herman Sanders and Jobst Heinrich Dalhoff took the surname of Waterkotte and carried it forward in subsequent generations. In fact, by clicking on some of the other names on this list, you'll see that quite a few people with the surname Waterkotte did not have a father with that name. (A Kötter, by the way, is a 'cottager' who probably had a small amount of land for gardening/farming and maybe a few livestock.)

Today, Waterkotte is not a common name in Germany, and its occurrence is still concentrated in Nordrhein-Westfalen, shown in the dark blue:

When Ferdinand immigrated to the U.S, he, whether intentionally or unintentionally, changed his name almost right away, at least on non-church documents.  His 1837 county marriage record lists his surname as 'Waterkater.' He is listed as Watercutter on his 1834 ship manifest and his 1844 Declaration of Intention also says Watercutter. And since Ferdinand settled in and raised a family in Ohio, it is not surprising that the U.S. occurrence of the surname Watercutter is still highest here, and particularly in the same county in which Ferdinand started farming his land 180 years ago. For fun, click this link, and then click on the small megaphone in the bottom left corner of the German box to hear how Waterkotte is pronounced in German. Then, I think you will understand how it became Watercutter.

Just for fun, I typed in 'Waterkotte' and looked at that name's U.S. distribution. I found a relatively high concentration in Adams County in Western Illinois.  And just by using Google, I have found a Waterkotte Harley-Davidson dealership in Mt. Vernon, IL, a St. Louis attorney by the name of Waterkotte, and a University of North Carolina professor named Waterkotte who got his Bachelor's degree at Illinois State University. It's likely that these people are somehow related to each other. With the surname being so unique even in Germany, it really makes me want to trace the ancestors of these Waterkotte individuals to see if I could find an Old Country connection between them and my husband's Waterkotte ancestors. (And that connection may not be blood - it could be due to land ownership and/or tenancy, as I discussed above.)

Baptism Record of Ferdinand Waterkotte: FHL microfilm 801427, Kirchenbuch: Katholische Kirche Ostbevern, Taufen 1803-1840

Baptism Record of Bernard Heinrich Waterkotte: FHL microfilm 801427, Kirchenbuch: Katholische Kirche Ostbevern, Taufen 1753-1805

Baptism Record of Bernard Herman Waterkotte: FHL microfilm 801427, Kirchenbuch: Katholische Kirche Ostbevern, Taufen 1718-1752

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

William and Mary (Watercutter) Knob are buried in Sacred Heart Cemetery in McCartyville, Ohio (Shelby County).  They are two of my husband's great-great grandparents on his paternal side of the family.  

William Knob was the youngest child of German immigrants Heinrich Knob and Anna Pancier.  The gravestone is difficult to read; it states that William was born in 1867 and died in 1947.  His death certificate says he was born in 1869.  Age clues from census records are inconclusive - his birth year could be anywhere between 1867 and 1869.  I have not yet located any probate birth record or church baptism record.

Mary Watercutter was the daughter of Henry Bernard Watercutter and Caroline Lohman, who were both children of German immigrants. Based on census age clues, which are pretty consistent for her, Mary was born around 1878, which also what her death record indicates.  The gravestone almost looks as if her birth year is 1873, but I have never physically been to this grave, so it just may be weathering.   I will have to check the next time I am in the area.  Mary passed away on July 5, 1965.

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

I have been doing some additional research on the Knob family this week, so I decided to feature them in this week's Census Sunday.  William Knob and Mary Watercutter were two of my husband's great-great grandparents on his dad's side of the family.  William was the youngest child of Henry and Anna (Pancier) Knob, both German immigrants, and Mary's grandfather, Ferdinand, was also a German immigrant who came over in 1834.  (This area of western Ohio was largely settled by German Catholic farmers in the 19th century.)  Here are both families as 'next-door' neighbors in the 1880 census, about 17 years before William and Mary get married.  They are living in McLean Township in Shelby County.  There are maps below for reference.

©2013, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder