I originally began this One Name Study because I didn't know the origins of my maternal grandfather's family. A One Name Study is one way to try to find out. Researching every person, everywhere who has the surname of an ancestor or a variant spelling of that surname can often lead to the origin of the name. In this case, however, I had put what I knew of my grandfather's family on WikiTree and someone else added to our branch of the family.
To recap: What I knew of my grandfather's family when I began my research was the following:
:My grandfather was Simeon Beismer, Sr. born in 1879 in Sullivan County, NY.
:His father was Silas Beismer born in 1838 also from Sullivan County, NY. That's the furthest back I've seen that spelling of the surname.
There are a ridiculous number of spellings of the surname. Spelling rules for English weren't developed until the mid-1800s. Most people didn't read or write; most documents were written by others based on what they heard of names. We've already established that the family originally came from Germany. German has it's own script/alphabet. That had to be transliterated into English as the family encountered English speakers.
Once I began to research the family, I found the following fairly easily:
:Silas' father was Cornelius Osterhaut Besemer/Beesimer born in 1806 in Ulster County, NY.
:Cornelius' father was Johann Casparus Besemer, Jr. born in 1776 also in Ulster County, NY.
This brings up an interesting German custom of first given names. You'll find a lot of German Johans or Johannes for a period of time. Johan or Johannes was given as a biblical reference then another given name, not considered a middle name, such as Casparus or Georg which was the actual name used. I first encountered Casparus as that, Casparus and only much later as Johan Casparus which caused me much initial confusion. German female children were often named Maria something but knows by their second given name. Once the tradition is understood, it makes research more manageable.
:Casparus' father was Johannes Casparus Besemer, Sr. born about 1739 in Reudern, Nürtingen, Württemberg, Heiliges Römisches Reich. He arrived in the America, according to Henry Jones' More Palatine Families, on The Good Intent, arriving November 9, 1749, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was our first immigrating ancestor.
:Casparus Sr.'s father was Johann Georg Besemer or Hans Jerg born about 1705 in Nabern, Kirchheim, Württemberg, Heiliges Römisches Reich but died in the New York Colony about 1760. He was also on the ship The Good Intent when it arrived in 1749. This is considered a Palatine ship.
The Palatines were Germanic people from a region of Germany called the Palatinate. I haven't spent much time reading about the history of the Palatines but just scanned the Wikipedia article and will read it later. I don't think it's important to get into all that now. I think it's enough to know that they were people who were early immigrants from German and other related areas.
That's two families I'm related to who were from the Palatinate.
I will probably not work much more on this One Name Study except to fill in the profiles of related family members and connect our branch of the family to other branches here in the United States; I don't read German.
I will be adding stickers, @ WikiTree, to family members' profiles indicating their descendancy from Palatine ancestors.
I will, at some point work on some statistics for the family.
