Johan,
I think your talking about my site as I think I am the only one to publish June's
Shirer Family essay. Remember that this forum is for the
Shirer surname and not all of us are connected. Perhaps one day we will be but there are at least four distinct lines that I know of in
America and maybe more. It would seem that there are a large group of us in the US and we have some common background.
First is the obvious spelling and pronunciation. Most of us pronounce
Shirer,
Scheurer and Shirar as rhyming with "higher." Some pronounce it like "sheer." Many reasons for this have to do with origin and dialect. Many of us descend from the Scheurers of Switzerland and those areas surrounding it like Württemburg, the Palatinate, Prussia and the Alsace. Since the origin was
Swiss, most of these families share the same dialect which pronounce the "eu" in
Scheurer as the long "I" sound. Others which descend from the Scherers in other parts of Germany have a different dialect where the "eu" sound sounds like "oy" producing something close to Shoyer. Some of those families came to the Carolinas and most of the Shirers found in the south descend from this family and do not pronounce the name the same as us that descend from the
Scheurer line.
Second, the seems to be a common thread among those that arrived through Philadelphia, that the name was originally
Scheurer. I am certain that the Scheurers from
Berks and Lehigh counties, PA did come from the Alsace and general vicinity and are directed descended from the
Swiss Scheurers. There is also a family that came in 1730 aboard the Thistle of Glasgow named
Scherer that came from Lachen-Speyerdorf. The church records there record their migration and also that they were mostly
Swiss refugees. This family settled n
Lancaster, PA and MD and can be found today as
Scherer and
Shearer.
Johan Augustus
Scherer, settled in PA and waffled between
Lancaster and
Frederick Co. MD finally settling in MD. He had a large family of only a few are known for certain. His marriage being recorded in 1729 it is possible he might be the father of John
Shirer of Somerset Co., PA who is said to have come to the are in 1790 from
Frederick Co., MD. This line is found in my database as originally it was thought that my ancestor,
Valentine Scheurer (Shirrar) was John's son. This is not the case. There are similarities and they did live within twenty miles of each other but
Valentine came from
Berks Co, PA and has been proven by tax records and baptismal records for his oldest sons to be connected there and to the Scheurers of Richmond and Maxatawny townships. Nothing has yet proven who his parents are but one son was sponsored by John Peter
Scheurer, son of
Ulrich Scheurer, and was also named John Peter
Scheurer. Most sponsors were relatives or close friends so there is a relationship there and possibly Peter is Valentine's father but I am not claiming him until some concrete evidence is found.
I do not research the descendants of John
Shirer anymore since proving
Valentine is not linked to him. I still accept contributions and updates but until I can prove a relationship, my research is better directed towards finding Valentine's parents and other connections. I still believe John and Peter
Shirer of
Somerset will be connected to the other Scheurers someday.
There is also another line of Shirers that came to
America from Germany about 1845 settling first in New York but with the
Scheurer spelling. They came west and some settled in New Berlin,
Ohio now called North
Canton where I lived up until a few months ago. There are still Scheurers found here but the bulk of them went to
Iowa. One son moved to Chicago and became the District Attorney there. His wife and son would move to
Iowa after his early death. Her parents and his lived in Black Hawk Co., IA where they settled. Still using the
Scheurer spelling they would change it when anti-German sentiment was rampant. They chose the
Shirer spelling in part because there were other families living near them with the same spelling. Coincidentally these families would turn out to be descendants of
Valentine Scheurer. The son of the Chicago family was William L. Shirer, the noted newsman and author of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and other works. If I had lots of access to European records, I bet they would be connected to the
Swiss Scheurers as well but for now they are a separate line.
The meaning of the name could be the one that June wrote about but a better one that more closely follows some of the early professions is one that is shared by the
Scherer and
Shearer name, which is a worker of cloth. The Scheurers in Weyer, Bas-Rhin, Alsace were tailors. Valentine was a weaver. Most were secondary trades, the primary being farming which supplied the families with food. Many later professions would grow out of the other trades learned during the pioneer days such as carpentry, butchering, cabinetry and blacksmithing. Some of Valentine's weaving work still survives and some tax records identify him as being a weaver. None of his descendants would follow that trade, most being wood workers. Out of the cabinetry business they became casket makers and later funeral directors. The
Shirer Funeral Home in Adamsville,
Ohio and the
Shirer Casket Co. in New Orleans, LA are owned by descendants of
Valentine.
So it would seem the meaning of the name is aptly applied to the very early immigrants and historically those still living in
Europe using the same spelling can trace their lineage back to those early cloth workers who were tailors, weavers, and possibly sheep farmers. I've never seen any instance of them being connected with grain other than raising it on the farm. Some took up milling but the mills were mostly used for lumber and not grain. My
Scheurer contacts in
Europe tend to agree with the cloth worker occupations as the origin of the name.
There are many works on the German naming traditions and I am well aware of them. I do provide some links on my site to places where you can learn more about them. Johan or Johann was a religious symbolic name given to most male children while Anne or Anna or Maria was given to the females. This is mostly fueled by superstition. One story I have heard says that to protect their children from being tempted or taken by the Devil, they would give all their children a saints name to protect them and confuse the Devil. If he came for John he wouldn't know which one to take. For this reason most German's everyday name is their middle name. Johannes is an exception. Only one child in a family would be named
Johannes who would usually be called Hans or later John. Using this reasoning, John
Shirer of
Somerset was more than likely
Johannes Scheurer. No one else with Johan or Johann in the same family would be called John. I have seen some records referring to
Ulrich Scheurer as Johan
Ulrich Scheurer but most American records mostly use the given name to identify a person and not their complete name. The records of the Lutheran and Reformed churches did use the full name but even they were seen to change in later records. The baptismal record for John Peter
Scheurer being and example. If that record had been in a Lutheran church at the time it would more than likely be written as Johan Peter
Scheurer but Delong's church, where the records were found in Maxatawny Twp.,
Berks Co., PA, was a Reformed congregation. Valentine was Lutheran but there was not a Lutheran minister serving the area at that time hence the Reformed church record.
I've never seen any branch of the family coming during the early eighteenth century being Dutch. There are Scheurers living in the Netherlands today but I have been in touch with a few of them and they say the family is originally from Switzerland. Even those living in Sweden and Denmark say the same. I am sure that others who emigrated in the nineteenth century and later did come from other parts of
Europe and possibly the Netherlands. None of those I research came later than the early eighteenth century and none experienced Ellis Island even the ancestors of William L. Shirer.
The
Scheurer family has spread throughout
Europe but the spelling has never changed from the point that they could write it. Most of the early records found in the eighteenth century in
Europe were done by clerics who were educated. Those records that show the person actually signing their name were all over the place in spelling because they were not educated and phonetically sounded out the words. I have seen a few documents where the person spelled their own name differently on the same document. For the most part, when they learned to write and spell, the name stabilized as
Scheurer. There are thousands of them found all over
Europe most descending from the
Swiss. Since they married into other families with different dialects, the pronunciation may have changed over time from the original but now the spelling seems to be a more important indication of origin.
Here in the US, most of the descendants of the
Berks Co., PA Scheurers use the
Shirer,
Sheirer,
Shirey, Shirar or
Shearer spelling. John Peter
Scheurer, previously mentioned son of
Ulrich, moved to Franklin Co., PA and most descendants there use the
Shearer spelling while some moved north into Northumberland Co and use Sherry. Most living in
Berks today use either
Sheirer or
Shirey. In
Somerset and Bedford counties, PA where
Valentine lived before coming to
Ohio, are found the descendants of Adam
Scheurer, a neighbor of
Valentine and probably a close relative. Today they also use the
Sheirer and
Shirey spellings. Some of the Shireys came to
Ohio and live in Summit and Stark counties. There are descendants found in
Canton where I live. So far no connection to them is found but they are more than likely connected to Valentine's line.
Valentine's descendants are found in
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Iowa, Kansas, Texas, California, Oregon, Louisiana and Washington states. Some of them use the Shirar spelling but most use
Shirer. Even the early records of the Shirars are mostly
Shirer. Tracking the family has had its ups and downs but mostly those who have found my site, this forum and the
Shirer mailing list seem to be better informed about their ancestry. Nothing in this world including genealogies are 100% so things are always changing in my database as more and more descendants find data that is not as accurate as it should be and that is why it is there, as a starting point for those to start their own research and not as a place just to copy data.
June Orten was an early contributor to my site as were many others like Gil Gaumer. Most of that early work has been expended on and in some cases proved wrong. I'll be the first to admit I was one of those that originally thought
Valentine and John were linked but hard work and determination has proved that wrong but on the down side has not found a confirmed parent for him.
Thanks again for posting your information. I know the boards and lists have been somewhat stagnant in the last year or so as research has not found anything new. The most recent work has been with another John Peter
Scheurer descendant who has brought the family in Franklin Co., to light. Possibly a will can be found there for Peter who died there that might mention all of his children. I hold out hope that it will mention
Valentine. Until then, the hunt goes on.
I know this post is rather long but I wanted to respond to the points you made and to also let others know that I'm still alive and working on our family connections as well as other connected families. I encourage other
Shirer families, even those not connected to mine, to take the time to post your brick walls and current lines of research and get the lines of communication between us all going again. To those who are new to the list or to
Shirer research, don't assume we are connected because of the spelling of our name. Do the research and help prove that we are or aren't.
Hope you all have a good holiday season.
As always, your
Shirer Admin and possible cousin,
Denny
ShirerShirer Family Genealogy -
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mysong