Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: December 29th, 2013
I think it is time to start the history of the Delsmans as I know it. But let me start first with a little story about where the first part of this material all came from. When Dory was still living in Banks, she quite by accident became acquainted with Tim Delsman. Tim planned to host a gather of the Delsman family at his farm later that summer and when he found out that Dory was descended from another Delsman, he invited her to come and also mom and any other of the brothers and sisters. So, we all came. During the course of the conversations, it became apparent that several of the participants had wanted to make contact with the Delsmans still in Germany but did not know how to do that. It is simple, said I, you just write to the parish church. The Catholic Church keeps amazingly good records.
It turned out that Dory and I were the only ones who could speak German and so I agreed to write to the church in Ascheberg where our ancestors came from. As far as records in Germany are concerned, you can almost always go back to the time of the thirty years war. Before that is rather chancy because the protestants were delighted to burn down everything the Catholics had and the Catholics were happy to return the favor so many records were destroyed. That is the case throughout Europe, incidentally. At times of unrest, the revolutionaries burn down everything. So, I wrote and they said all their records had been sent to the archdiocese in Muenster. So, I wrote there. They said there is a special repository for such old records, but I could write to a certain person who could help. So, I wrote to that person. Now it turned out that a fellow from The Netherlands was also researching his genealogy and his name was Delsman. We had both written to the same fellow and he actually visited the man. The fellow said, it is amazing, but two people had written him within a week asking about the Delsman family. Well, this man got all excited, got my address and wrote to me. His name was Otto, Otto Delsman. The next reunion, he came out to the Delsman reunion at the Tim Delsman place. This time Gertrude and Nancy Holdorf were there. Otto had no idea that there were so many Delsmans in the U.S. In the end, Otto put together a complete genealogy of the Delsman family and close relatives and heavens knows what all. As it turns out, Otto is Dutch and his genealogy page is in Dutch. Nevertheless, I will pass on what he has written as it pertains to our family.
The original name of the Delsman family is Delsing or also Delsink. The Ing ending is a common one in the Saxon lands, in the area that Tacitus called the lands of the North Sea Germans or the Ingvaeones. By the end of the Middle Ages, though, the Ing simply referred to family, so this name means Del’s family, at least that is what an etymologist in the Netherlands thought. Del is apparently a short for or a nick name for Elisabeth. In those days, you went by first names. The Ing originally referred to an ancient ancestor, the son of Mannus who in turn was the son of Tuisto, who according to original legends came out of the soil. It is fun to dig around all that. The name “ing” long sense lost its meaning and there are a lot of names with the “ing” in it such as Ing-mar and Ing-rid and so on, but all connection with the Ingvaeones has long, long since been lost. At any rate that is that.
Another thing, in those original days, the name stayed with the farm. So, if a daughter inherited the farm, then married, the husband took on the name of the wife, that is, the name of the farm. You will see that in some of these things that I will pass on. But by way of example, Uncle Heini’s name was Sander and his family migrated from Westfalen. Uncle Heini’s Uncle originally married a girl named Pferdekamp and so his name was Sander genannt Pferdekamp. That family moved to the U.S., too, when times got tough, and dropped the part of the name, genannt Pferdekamp. The word genannt just means named. In the first third of the 19th century that particular custom was eliminated. It was not prevalent in the rest of Germany anyway. The Ing part of the names was changed to “man” or “mann” and eventually became “mann” in conformity with the rest of Germany, but anyway. So, that is the background. I do not know if it is true that Delsman was originally a short for of Elisabeth’s family or not. The etymologist was Dutch and thought that the name was Dutch, but that is what is written in the blurb introducing the genealogy of the family. So, now we are ready.
To be continued.