Hi! I hate to be a thorn but thought I should pass this along: I have a copy of an 1848 deed from Columbia County, PA of a Jacob STROUP & wife (Catharine) selling a tract of land in Derry Twp to Hatty Albright. [Columbia County, PA Deed Book Vol. 11, p. 379-380] According to this deed, when Jacob first bought the land he was known as Jacob STROUSE [recorded in Columbia County Deed Book Vol. F (I think - hard to read), p. 406 & 407]. According to one STRUASS researcher STROUSE and STRAUSE were common variations. There's also a book at the PA State Library which, unfortunately, I only had time to glance at called "Notes on the early history in the country of the Strauss (Stroop, Stroup, Straup, Strubb, Strupp, Strope, etc.) family" by Gail Ann Breitbard. I looked at it enough to know the author believed Stroup and others evolved from Strauss but don't know her reasoning. Sorry! Maybe there's someone else out there who's familiar with this book? And as a small point of interest, my maiden name is Stroup which we pronounced so that it rhymed with "trout." We knew other Stroup families who pronounced it so that it rhymed with "soup." We believed since we weren't related that the difference in pronunciation was a good indication of not having a common ancestry. Of course, we couldn't have been more wrong! My father pronounces the name more like Strawp (kind of rhymes with clot) and he said his grandfather, William Herve who was born and raised in Columbia Co., PA (Adam Straub, Sr. was his great grandfather) pronounced the name almost like it was two syllables - "straw-up." Linda Allen [email protected]