« Reply #9 on: Monday 27 April 20 19:30 BST (UK) »
Hi All,
My 4X great grandfather records his place of birth as Germany on Census records. He was born approx. 1809.
His name is most often recorded as Nicholas Buck. I wondered if this was an anglicised version of his name? Would it have been Bach or something similar?
Glen
I've now had a look at the German GEDBAS website and there's hundreds of "Buck" surnames.
As there was no such country as "Germany" until the 20th century, I found there were some given names popular in different little states. Children given the names of the ruler - so was there a ruler of a princedom called Nicholas for example? additionally, the Kingdom of Hanover had the spelling "Conrad", whereas other states more often than not had the spelling "Konrad".
When I first started researcing my German roots, I was given a hint that quite often our ancestors followed in the footsteps of earlier family members or people from the same village, so if you are able to cast about the area your ancestor lived in to see if any German has written his/her place of origin in the census.
Have you ruled out that maybe your ancestor was part of the British army and served in the Hessian Army/Hanovarian army? I think they were barracked on the south coast of England and when some of them had served their time as soldiers they headed towards London
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie: Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke
