Nancy this is a very valid suggestion. Additionally we have a number of French Huguenot families that became Mennonite and/or brethren. My own Correll family was one of them although it is thought they originated in Spain before fleeing to France and integrating into the Protestant community there. So the suggestion that this not very Germanic brethren name might have French roots is valid. John Shafer Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 14, 2014, at 2:21 PM, "Nancy Cripe" <nclunaire@aol.com> wrote: > > Melanie, > > > Re: possible French origins of the Sherow, Shirrow, etc. family name. Another possibility to consider is that the original name that evolved into Sherow may have begun not with a "sh" sound but its voiced variant, the [∫] or "soft g"?? Perhaps Sherow was originally a French name beginning not with S but with G, such as Giroux, Gireaux or Geraux? In a world in which language was predominantly oral, not written, this morphing between voiced and unvoiced phonemes (v to f, b to p, g to k or hard c, soft g to sh, j to ch, etc. > > In my family line, the voiced G of Greib became the same sound unvoiced: K or hard C: Kreib, Kripe, and Cripe. The voiced b on the end evolved to its unvoiced twin: p. Greib of the 18th century Germany-speaking world were people spoke but seldom wrote their names was variantly spelled Greib, Kreib, and Kripe. > > In the English-speaking world, it morphed into Gripe and Cripe, and as people became more literate and more and more of life was documented, the name became standardized as Cripe in the contemporary English-speaking world. In Germany and Alsace-Lorraine, it is still spelled, now standardized, as Greib. The sound of Greib in German is strikingly similar to the sound of Cripe in English. > > Message: 7 > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 12:07:52 -0700 > From: Melanie Rice <mjrice.denver@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [BRE] BRETHREN Digest, Vol 9, Issue 20 > To: brethren@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: > <CADOsdMA-fOM79hV82cMOeNJ6umkyPaiROU1OaOXjuy6xzf40iA@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Ruth, > > We have considered that possibility, but so far, no evidence points in that > direction. > > This is why I'm digging around the collateral lines and looking at the > family's religious affiliation. > > >> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 8:01 AM, Ruth Hoese <ruthjh@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> Have you looked into the possibility that Shirrow could be French. As in >> Shireau or Chireau or variants with an x on the end . . . . > > > > ------------------------ > Search the Archives at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/BRETHREN > ------------------------ > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BRETHREN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message