People who came from Germany or German-speaking regions to live in America are called "German-Americans" in this document. Germanic peoples began immigrating to America in colonial times, their departure spiked by wars in Europe, such as, the Thirty Years war (1618-1648) and the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714). Germantown, Pennsylvania, founded in 1683, became the first all-German settlement in the American colonies. By the middle of the 18th century, several colonial areas were identified with German-Americans and their descendants, and by 1790 this group was about one-tenth of the American population. One large German-American group that came around the middle of the 18th century was called the "Pennsylvania Dutch" because the Yankees confused "Deutsch," the word for German, with "Dutch," and, some say, because the only "foreigners" the Yankees knew in America were the Dutch. Most of the German-American immigrants came in the last half of the 19th century when local hardships in the European homelands of Germanic peoples, e.g., famine, lack of jobs, bad despots, and a series of civil wars, motivated them to make the move. This website focuses on one of the areas especially beset with these problems, what is now south-western Germany, or Baden-Wurttemburg, the origin of many who came to the United States. The five million German-Americans arriving during the 19th century settled mostly in the heartland of America, those states cut from the old Northwest Territory and its vicinity. One destination city was Cleveland, Ohio, and the southwestern German-American Heger families who came to this area are the subject of this site.
The name "Heger" has a derivation from an occupation. In German, "heger" means "man who tends the woods." It is the name for a forest warden, and is a relatively old family name. The name Heintz Heger was recorded in Strasburg in 1312, and the Heger name was in Freiburg after 1460. This name was, and still is, found throughout much of the German speaking parts of Europe, including especially, Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg, Alsace, Switzerland, and parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Two similar spellings "Heger" and "Häger" occur in Europe, but they have different pronunciations, meaning, and etymology. In German, the spelling "Häger" would be pronounced in the United States something like the name in English "Hacker." The names Hager, Heger, Haeger, and Hacker have the same Soundex, H260, along with many other similar names found in Europe and America. This document focuses on the German name spelled "Heger" and pronounced there as an American would phonetically pronounce the name "Hager," i.e., hay-gr, with the "g" as in "girl."
The spellings of their names that the immigrants used in Europe were not pronounced with the same sounds in America. Unlike a German, an American might pronounce the spelling "Heger" with a long "e" in the first syllable. When the immigrants came to America, they often changed the way they spelled their names so that native American speakers of English would pronounce it as the immigrants were accustomed to hear it in Europe. Thus, many Heger males, particularly younger immigrants and the first American-born generation, eventually changed the spelling of their name to "Hager" to preserve its familiar sound. American speakers of English would spell the name as "Hager" or something similar on their paperwork when hearing this name, even if the immigrant persisted in the traditional spelling or could not write. Likewise, some of the names spelled "Häger" in Europe may have become "Hacker," "Haker," "Hecker," or other spellings having the short "a" in the first syllable and/or the guttural Germanic "g" sound. Conversely, it is possible that other names changed to the spelling "Heger" to obtain their familiar sound as heard in Europe.
Since the documents do not reveal how the different spellings were
pronounced, all the spellings that might have been pronounced hay-gr
are transcribed in the records presented here, but not spellings, such
as "Hecker" or "Haker," that
usually indicate a different name from the Germanic Heger. Sometimes,
family name was spelled with such alternate spellings in a few
documents even though it was usually spelled "Heger" or "Hager."
Yankees founded and began building Cleveland in the first quarter of the 19th century, but in the second quarter of that century, emigrants from outside the United States began settling in and near Cleveland. In the second half of the 1800s, great numbers of Irish and Germans swelled the population of Cleveland. The pioneering Yankees created the opportunities that immigrants used to enter American society, but the process of assimilation was not an easy one. Germans who came to Cleveland were hard workers who had skills and ambitions that rivaled those of the Yankees themselves. They imported or cultivated their own able social leaders who helped build their own successful communities within the wider Cleveland society, and made many contributions to it. Although formerly subjects of imperial autocrats, German-Americans did not have the disadvantages of being the victims of a hostile colonial power, as did the Irish. A serious setback to the identity of German-Americans and their descendants, and their relationship to American society, came with the wars against Germany in the 20th century, when hysteria and anti-German hostility led to discrimination and foul deeds on the part of some Americans, and self-deprecation, doubt, and rejection for many of German origins.
Many Germans-American immigrants of the 19th century were
skilled farmers or
had vocations, such as bakers, brewers, and builders, that enabled them
quickly establish an optimistic financial future. Others were able to
exercise their entrepenurial bent in commercial ventures, or to advance
their professional standing through education. Even those without
vocational or business skills were usually able to find work and
opportunities that made economic progress for their families.
social leaders were able to focus on positive objectives and interface
successfully with the other elements of American society to advance the
aspirations of their base. Today, about one-quarter of Americans can
trace their ancestry to one of the eight million German-American
immigrants, the largest ethnic block to arrive. Probably no other
immigrant group to
post-colonial America had as much impact on culture, economics, and
politics as the German-Americans.
Cleveland had diverse commercial, agricultural, and industrial resources that immigrants would turn to their own advantages. Germans had communities in certain areas of the city in the 19th century, and sustained their cultural history for decades, with its artifacts becoming an integral part of Cleveland society. Later, in the twentieth century, the ethnic neighborhoods disappeared, German-Americans moved to the suburbs, and the descendants of the German-Americans blended completely into the greater society, often entirely forgetting their heritage and ancestors.
The data are arranged by location.
copyright © 2005 by Joseph C. Hager
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