[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Virginia Less-Surname:LESS

[Gary Warner]

To all,

I think Reiner proves the point that we cannot be 
certain who are relatives are until we link them 
to us a name at a time through pedigree charts 
and family group sheets.    Many of us do not 
know where to look to find our family, except 
probably that it is in Poland or Volhynia.   Some 
of us have family in those places for several 
generations, and some for a far shorter period of time.

These problems of connecting to family are why 
SGGEE keeps the master Pedigree file, and has 
also undertaken the goal of transcribing all of 
the Lutheran parishes in Central Poland to start 
with, and to then expand our transcribing to the 
more outlying areas when the central work is 
done.   It is the transcribing of entire parishes 
that finally makes certain who our relatives are 
when we see large groups of related families 
moving from one area to another.    This is why 
we all need to research not only our direct 
lines, but those of our aunts and uncles and 
cousins as well- so that when we find that same 
group of people in a new area, we can say with 
certainty that, Yes, that is my family.

Gary Warner
SGGEE

At 04:46 AM 05/11/06, Reiner Kerp wrote:
>Hello Virginia Less,
>sometimes I´d like to join a discussion but 
>feel, my English is not sufficient.
>
>Your name perhaps is one many examples for how 
>the High-German standardisations (of Lower- and 
>Upper-German) changed the pronounciation of 
>names/words. But we have to consider, that we 
>often read words, written down long before these 
>High-German standardisations were agreed to.
>
>Probably your name originally was written like 
>"Lehs", spoken in English like "LAAASHS" 
>(low-German: Leesch - followed by a genetiv-"s", 
>high-German: Licht, English: Light). Caused by 
>the "h" being a misinterpreted small Latin 
>letter "Esh" (today used as a phonetic diacritic - Unicode: U+0283).
>The standardisation agreed to transscribe such a 
>"hs-group" as the small Latin letter "ß" 
>(Unicode: U+00DF) - the "sharp s". In regions 
>that do not use ß, this letter mostly is 
>replaced by "ss", making the word sound very 
>different, because the preceeding vouwel e 
>becomes a very short one instead of an 
>originally lengthened one. It´s a big difference 
>in pronounciation between Ruß and Russ or Graß 
>and Grass. In the case of Eßer (originally Ehser 
>- with the h being the "Esh" - making the 
>preceeding e a lengthened one - followed again 
>by a genetiv-"s"  => Eschser) and Esser it makes 
>the original Eicher (English: Oaker) to an Esser 
>(English: Eater). Our German members may recall 
>the speeches of Franz Josef Strauß, the former 
>german Minister of Defense. He had a bit of an 
>"archaic" accent - stressing and lengthening vouwels..
>Additional difficulties are caused by german 
>names being "processed" by the Polish- and finally the English language.
>
>Best whishes,
>
>Reiner
>
>
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