As you're falling asleep, do you ever wonder about surnames that end in -IUS? To me, they sound Roman, like Pius Julius Claudius Pontius Blazius...words that sound Catholic, somehow. I often thought BRIXIUS was cool for that reason, knowing it was lucky the family ended up in extremely Catholic Buckman. Then later, as we got into the Pierz Journal, we found the name NEISIUS. I didn't connect it to Brixius cuz the two families were a good 6 miles apart ☺. Not until this week anyway, when I found something in the PJ about the Walerius family. Wow. Could you trace these families all the way back to ancient Rome?
But then, how come they spoke German?
They weren't from Bohemia, Austria or Germany. Turns out they were all Luxembourgers . Click the link if you want to check on a family name. It's an alphabetical list of immigrants from Luxembourg, including other familiar names from the area, too, like Sand, Brix, Conzemius, Majerus, Fandel, Valerius...in fact, about every letter there lists names you'll recognize from Minnesota. 
(Pretty good visual puns, huh?)
SagitarIUS, VesuvIUS, RadIUS....etc
ReplyDelete