When I married my husband, I was somewhat looking forward to taking his last name. I had grown up with a Polish surname, and it was actually one of the easier Polish names to spell and pronounce. However, I found that once I left my very ethnic hometown where such names were common, I was continually asked to repeat my name and spell it out S-L-O-W-L-Y (and then they'd still get it wrong!). So, I thought to myself, 'Schroeder' - fairly common and straightforward, right? Well, not so much, really. I soon learned that there are many ways to spell what sounds like schro-der or schro-ter, and that it may actually be pronounced schra-der or schra-ter depending on each family's tradition of saying it.
The name Schroeder (and all of is mix-and-match variants like S(c)hra(t)der and S(c)hro(e)ter) is a common and old family name with origins in medieval Northern Germany. It comes from the Middle Low German word(s) schroden/schraden which means "to cut," and it was a surname first given to tailors (people who cut cloth for a living), occasionally shoemakers (people who cut leather for a living), and also to draymen who would drive around large carts and deliver bulk quantities of beer and wine. Now we're talking!
I have been able to trace my husband's Schroeder family back to Frank Schroeder, who came to America probably sometime around 1850. I don't know the exact year because I haven't found his immigration ship manifest yet. In the 1860 Census, his place of birth is listed as Oldenburg, Germany, which is in the northern part of the country.
The name Schroeder (and all of is mix-and-match variants like S(c)hra(t)der and S(c)hro(e)ter) is a common and old family name with origins in medieval Northern Germany. It comes from the Middle Low German word(s) schroden/schraden which means "to cut," and it was a surname first given to tailors (people who cut cloth for a living), occasionally shoemakers (people who cut leather for a living), and also to draymen who would drive around large carts and deliver bulk quantities of beer and wine. Now we're talking!
I have been able to trace my husband's Schroeder family back to Frank Schroeder, who came to America probably sometime around 1850. I don't know the exact year because I haven't found his immigration ship manifest yet. In the 1860 Census, his place of birth is listed as Oldenburg, Germany, which is in the northern part of the country.
Surname information source: http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?view=3&surname=schroeder
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
©2012, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
