Re: Janke/Jahnke spelling significance?
-
In reply to:
Janke/Jahnke spelling significance?
Jim Janke 7/08/07
Both "Janke" and "Jahnke" like "Johnke", "Juhnke", "Henke", "Hanke" and many more started their career as derivations from "Johannes" - "Johann", "Hannes", "Hennes", "Hans", "Jehann" in Germany (as well as Poland, e.g.) in the Middle Ages, when they started to give their children names from biblical characters. Others are "Jankowsky" (Polish, and Polish people´s names who came to western parts of Germany. "Janek" and "Janosch" are more likely to be Czek.) Wide parts of "Prussia" (e.g., "West and East Prussia") were outside the "Holy Roman Empire", others were inside it ("Pomerania"; "Silesia" which had been Polish, Czek, then part of Austria (Houses of Luxembourg and Habsburg!!!)within the Empire, German and Polish after World War II), being inhabited by Polish people, Kaschub, Jews and German migrants. My family lived in lower Silesia at least from the times of my eighth ancestor Michael Janke (*1749) to Paul Janke (*1870?) near Wroclaw/Breslau at Swidnica/Schweidnitz, and my father Paul Karl Josef Janke (*1920 Zobten am Berge, now Sobótka; died +1989 Brilon, Northrhine-Westphalia). They were Catholics, but other Jankes were protestant in the neighborhood, without being relatives. My family were the only catholics there, maybe because of links to Austria (some aunts have got the looks), Bohemia or Poland, who can tell in a part of the "Holy Roman Empire" with so many migrations, esp. in Prussia where settlers from the Netherlands e.g. were welcome (like some relatives of my protestant mother´s from some Neumünsterberg/Koscielnica village in the Weichsel/Vistula Delta close to Gdansk/Danzig, which was one of the leading towns in the medieval Hansa League from Germany to London and around the North Sea as well as the whole of the Baltic Sea (Nowgorod ...). Then there were many wars. So, no wonder that some of my mother´s ancestors came from Sweden as well. Both my parents tell about uncles and aunts who emigrated to the U.S.A., Chicago, Midwest, before WW I, but we never traced them.
Well, you American Jankes are not the only ones who moved, migrated and/or married people from other counties, nations or denominations. We have always been on the move, like most of the others. Our family now lives mainly in Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany, being catholic. My sister´s daughter married a Greek immigrant´s son.
The spelling, though, is not of much importance. It changed sometimes. On the other hand, some had a meaning: "Großjohann/Grootjehann" (like French "Grandjean"!!!) was the title given to the foreman of farm laborers!
Lots of links here:
http://www2.genealogy.net/privat/o.schmidt/links.htmhttp://www2.genealogy.net/privat/o.schmidt/links.htm
Happy New Year to all of you!