All, I have had this burning question about the "proper" spelling of Württemberg. Please see below what I have found out. It is quite interesting. Kevin Hello, ___________________________________________ "Sholder, Kevin L" <KS100004@exchange.DAYTONOH.NCR.com> schrieb: >Celia, Bob, Wolf, and All [...] >"The correct spelling is WÜRTTEMBERG, it is derived from WIRTEMBERG which >means Wirt am Berg = innkeeper at the hill." ____________________________________________ Emigrants have always taken the names of their old home country with them, and "with" the old name and "in" the name have made the foreign/distant parts their home - the French, the Dutch, the English: Neuf-Orléans, Niuw-Haarlem, New-York. During WWI the archeologist and historian Peter Goeßler came to Luxembourg as a medical orderly. On a map he found the name "Wirdeberg", on another one "Widdeberg" (today Widdebierg), NE of Luxembourg City. From this he drew the conclusion that the old name "Wirtemberg", first of a castle, then of a family, and finally of a state, did not orginally belong to the hill above Untertürkheim (Stuttgart), above the Neckar River, but was imported to the Neckar from Luxembourg in historical times (about 1060/1080). As one can imagine there was quite an uproar at this "foreign" news at the time. King Wilhelm II of Württemberg was astonished but said: "Doctor Goeßler is probably right ... Doesn't also the House of Hanover stem from Lombardy and the Russian House of the Romanovs from Oldenburg?" Legend has it that the innkeeper at the hill, a cheerful young man, abducted the Emperor's daughter, hid with wife and child from the wrath of his father- in-law near one of the most busy military roads (of all places!) of the Holy Empire of the German Nation. But when the Emperor passed through the man was pardoned and received a castle and a noble title. - Historians ask: Mightn't the story contain a core of truth in that there was a marriage of a Wirtemberger with a relative of the Emperor, not necessarily his daughter? ______________________________________________ >I still have a lot to learn about proper punctuation for foreign location >names, but since I am using a computer I'll stick with "WÜRTTEMBERG" >spelling. _______________________________________________ Yes, always do writing a family history, etc.. However, I have never understood why our List is not called "-WUERTTEMBERG", the -ue- rendering the ü-umlaut. _______________________________________________ >Is it recommended, that when transcribing from formal documents that you >should duplicate the spelling that they use, or correct it? ______________________________________________ When "quoting" from a document you have to render the orignal spelling, but if it is an unusual spelling like "Wurtemberg" (no umlaut, one t only) you should write is as "Wurtemberg [!]", and if you have "Württembg", the abridged form, you could write "Württemb[er]g", because people then know that what they find in square brackets are your additions or comments. Greetings from the "United States of Euroland"! Heinz Majer ==== BADEN-WURTTEMBERG Mailing List ==== Search the German Telephone Directory: http://www.teleauskunft.de/