--part1_0.d630b0ac.2559d0e9_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thought this post concerning possible origins of a spelling variation might be of interest to someone. It is from a German list. Best to all. Karen S. << I would favor the name Pein over Pine certainly, but there are alternatives. The family was from Hannover, which happens to be on the Leine river. Also the town of Piene (silent "e", I presume) is the most nearby city on my 1969 map with a population of 30K while Hannover was about 500K population 30 years ago. Piene is about 40 miles West of Hannover. So the name, Pein, might well have been derived from the town Piene, and spelled that way originally. Literacy in the 19th century was spotty. Language was mostly only verbal. Many Prussian families were farmers and wouldn't care much how their names were spelled in Prussia. I operate with another caution. It is as possible as not that some occupation or meaning was attributed to a surname much later by some curious and creative relative. Such a meaning attribution tends to be retold as fact, because after all, everybody later remembers the same story. I would guess that assuming the surname, "Agony", by a family is especially unlikely, but adopting one's place for surname was routine. My amateur guess is that your ancestors took their name from the town, Piene. It might have been truncated to Pien at local discretion. In America people would be confused as to Piene or Pien pronunciation. To capture the sound unambiguously, in Amerca, the name would be spelled, Pine. ........ My ancesters included a Pien immigrant from the 1870s. We have the same spelling uncertainty. I never heard the "pain, suffering, agony" association until today. Our uncertain Americanization was Paine, not a German word. But there were other phonetic variations. end >> --part1_0.d630b0ac.2559d0e9_boundary Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: <PRUSSIA-ROOTS-L-request@rootsweb.com> Received: from rly-zd05.mx.aol.com (rly-zd05.mail.aol.com [172.31.33.229]) by air-zd05.mail.aol.com (v62.15) with ESMTP; Tue, 09 Nov 1999 13:08:19 -0500 Received: from bl-14.rootsweb.com (bl-14.rootsweb.com [204.212.38.30]) by rly-zd05.mx.aol.com (v62.10) with ESMTP; Tue, 09 Nov 1999 13:07:44 -0500 Received: (from slist@localhost) by bl-14.rootsweb.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA00616; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 10:07:16 -0800 (PST) Resent-Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 10:07:16 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: truher@pop.sirius.com Message-Id: <l03130305b44e0bb021ce@[205.134.242.75]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 10:07:03 -0800 Old-To: PRUSSIA-ROOTS-D@rootsweb.com From: Jack Truher <truher@sirius.com> Subject: [PRUSSIA] Pein surname Resent-Message-ID: <0d_zZC.A.kI.RLGK4@bl-14.rootsweb.com> To: PRUSSIA-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com Resent-From: PRUSSIA-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com X-Mailing-List: <PRUSSIA-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com> archive/latest/13384 X-Loop: PRUSSIA-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: PRUSSIA-ROOTS-L-request@rootsweb.com Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit concerning the question: >I am in need of some help locating my ancestors. The "Americanized" >surname is Pine. I was told by a relative that the orginal name meant >"pain" or "to hurt" in German. I would favor the name Pein over Pine certainly, but there are alternatives. The family was from Hannover, which happens to be on the Leine river. Also the town of Piene (silent "e", I presume) is the most nearby city on my 1969 map with a population of 30K while Hannover was about 500K population 30 years ago. Piene is about 40 miles West of Hannover. So the name, Pein, might well have been derived from the town Piene, and spelled that way originally. Literacy in the 19th century was spotty. Language was mostly only verbal. Many Prussian families were farmers and wouldn't care much how their names were spelled in Prussia. I operate with another caution. It is as possible as not that some occupation or meaning was attributed to a surname much later by some curious and creative relative. Such a meaning attribution tends to be retold as fact, because after all, everybody later remembers the same story. I would guess that assuming the surname, "Agony", by a family is especially unlikely, but adopting one's place for surname was routine. My amateur guess is that your ancestors took their name from the town, Piene. It might have been truncated to Pien at local discretion. In America people would be confused as to Piene or Pien pronunciation. To capture the sound unambiguously, in Amerca, the name would be spelled, Pine. ........ My ancesters included a Pien immigrant from the 1870s. We have the same spelling uncertainty. I never heard the "pain, suffering, agony" association until today. Our uncertain Americanization was Paine, not a German word. But there were other phonetic variations. ==== PRUSSIA-ROOTS Mailing List ==== Subscribers: Can you spare $10 dollars to support Rootsweb? http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html --part1_0.d630b0ac.2559d0e9_boundary--