Liptrap?

[ravenfolk]

Hello All,
I have a question about the entomology of the surname Liptrap. I have heard differing opinions of its origin. The opinions include English, German and Scot-Irish. I would love to hear your views of its possible origins.
Thanks!

ravenfolk

[Dendrias]

Entomology: the scientific study of insects.

Now, I don't hope this is a rating of the ... name.
Doesn't sound like German, unless it's a very evil dialect of the nether-saxon settlers in Azerbaijan.
You found this, didn't You? None of these do sound German.

[ravenfolk]

Hello All,
I have a question about the entomology of the surname Liptrap.

... OMG! my apologies...eytmology, right? You know we need a smiley on this forum of someone putting their foot in their mouth, if not for anyone else but me. Sometimes my brain has no idea what my fingers are typing.

Yes, the link you sited is one of the references I looked at. I am glad to hear someone else thinks it doesn't sound German. I didn't think it did either...

ravenfolk

[Art]

Somehow it sounds like one of the "Ellis Island" names which were given to people when the inspector could not pronounce nor spell the individual's name. That was fairly common (and not just at Ellis Island.) You might want to look for other names that sound the same.

[Jake]

About the surname Liptrap or Liptrot:
http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Liptrap-f ... story.ashx

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... %20Liptrot

The name Liptrot may seem rather obscure to us here in Canada, but in Lancashire, England, where the name is believed to originate, it is rather common. The name has many different variations. It can be rendered as Liptrot, Liptrott, Lyptrot, or Lyptrott, and is related to Liptrap and Liptrat as well as every possible spelling variation of each.

The origin of the name has led to some interesting speculation...However it is more likely that the name is not English at all, but an Anglicization of the German name, Liobtrut or Liebetraut, which comes from the Old High German liub, meaning "beloved" or "dear" (related to the Old English leof) and trut, meaning "a friend" or "sweetheart" (related to the English word "true"). The combination could mean "dearly loved", "beloved friend", or "trustworthy". The variants Liubtrut and Liebtrut are sometimes used in Germany today as women's given names. In the Middle High German dialect, the name became Lieptrut, Lieptraut, and even Lieptrap. The name Liebetraut would have been pronounced something like "LEEB-uh-troot" (with a rolled "r") and was apparently too German sounding for English folks to pronounce and it evolved into Liptrot (and variants).

And "The Myth of Ellis Island Name Changes":
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/a ... ticle=3893

[ravenfolk]

Thanks Jake for this info...I believe I have read this entry before on ancestry.com.,
I still feel as though the German theory is a stretch for me. It just sounds odd to me...I have German ancestry in my family but for some reason it doesn't feel right. I can understand the English possibility. Is Lancashire near the border country of Scotland? The Liptrap in my family was listed on the Scot-Irish rolls of VA. Maybe not everyone on those rolls were Scot-Irish? It is fun trying to find out the origins though...its kind of like an hunt you just never know what you will end up finding.

ravenfolk

[DaRC]

Surnames are funny things...
In the first world war many people in the UK with German sounding surnames changed their names to a more English variant, the most famous example being the Windsors (aka the Royal Family) from Saxe-Coburg. When the Hanoverians became Kings of England (George I) they brought a lot of Germans with them, the most notable being Handel. Many of these families changed their surnames at that time.

Lancashire is close enough to the Scots borders for there to have been a lot of movement / interrelations of people thoughout the ages. Given that marriage will take the paternal surname the root place of a surname doesn't necessarily mean that a particular branch of a family comes from that area.

[ravenfolk]

Surnames are funny things...
In the first world war many people in the UK with German sounding surnames changed their names to a more English variant, the most famous example being the Windsors (aka the Royal Family) from Saxe-Coburg. When the Hanoverians became Kings of England (George I) they brought a lot of Germans with them, the most notable being Handel. Many of these families changed their surnames at that time.

Lancashire is close enough to the Scots borders for there to have been a lot of movement / interrelations of people thoughout the ages. Given that marriage will take the paternal surname the root place of a surname doesn't necessarily mean that a particular branch of a family comes from that area.

Yeah, you are right...I sometimes forget the history behind how certain countries and empires inter- married and with the passing of time the name isn't necessarily associated with a particular area, therefore the surname can be misleading to a certain extent. Thanks for the reminder...

ravenfolk

[Dendrias]

Liebetraut et al. ... I haven't thought of that! Spelling can be so intrigueing! And phonetics as well.
There are four findings of the surname Liebetraut in Germany.

[Jake]

The Liptrap in my family was listed on the Scot-Irish rolls of VA. Maybe not everyone on those rolls were Scot-Irish? It is fun trying to find out the origins though...its kind of like an hunt you just never know what you will end up finding.

ravenfolk

Bear in mind too that not all the Scots-Irish/Ulster Scots will carry Scottish surnames as not all their ancestors were Scottish. While most of the colonists of the Ulster Plantation were Lowlands Scots, many were English (both from the counties bordering Scotland and elsewhere). Apparently there were some German and French Protestants as well and even the odd Flemish mercenary.

And I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the people and cultures of Lowland Scotland reflect a wonderful mixture of Gaelic, Brythonic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse origins. In my own Scots-Irish ancestry there are Gaelic surnames like McCoy and Campbell but also surnames like Culbertson (possibly originally Cuthbertson), Breckenridge and Widney which appear to be Anglo-Saxon.

Anyway if you ever need any help researching your family tree, feel free to send me a PM. I find genealogy an awful lot of fun too -- in fact I'm pretty much obsessed, and would be happy to help!

[Jake]

Liebetraut et al. ... I haven't thought of that! Spelling can be so intrigueing! And phonetics as well.

So true! There are lots of examples of this with German-American surnames as well, like my Eckenrode family for instance.

When he sailed into Philadelphia in 1743, the progenitor of the line was listed as "Johanes Ickroth" on the ship's manifest. In 1752 he placed a newspaper ad in which he referred to himself as "Johannes Eckroth" and local reports by English speakers called him "John Eckenroad." His children all seem to have adopted the spelling "Eckenroth."

This is the tombstone of his wife, Anna Margaretha (her birth surname is unknown), my 7th great-grandmother (twice over! we're a little inbred ) whose name is spelled "Anna Marikretha Eckenrothin." I think it's fascinating that in 1790 her headstone was carved in German. I mean obviously this immigrant family spoke German, but to me it also implies they assumed their American descendants would remain fluent enough in the language to read the stone. While this was true for another century or so among my Mennonite ancestors (some of whose descendants still speak "Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch"), these Catholic Eckenrodes started marrying Irish and stopped speaking German within a couple of generations.

AMStone.jpg

(151.32 KiB) Downloaded 669 times

Interestingly, the descendants of Johannes Wilhelm and Anna Margaretha who stayed in Pennsylvania, and from whom I descend, spell their name "Eckenrode" while a branch of the family who went West in the 1800s use the spelling "Eckroat," which appears to me to be closer to the original German pronunciation. This is also the case with other family lines too. My 6th great-grandfather was Johannes Adam Pfeiffer and while all his descendants in Pennsylvania spell the name "Piper," I learned a couple of years ago that a branch of the family who moved to the mid-western US were spelling their name "Peiper" well into the 1800s.

Sorry for being so long-winded and going so far off topic. I did mention that I was obsessive about this stuff, didn't I?

[ravenfolk]

[/quote]Jake
Bear in mind too that not all the Scots-Irish/Ulster Scots will carry Scottish surnames as not all their ancestors were Scottish. While most of the colonists of the Ulster Plantation were Lowlands Scots, many were English (both from the counties bordering Scotland and elsewhere). Apparently there were some German and French Protestants as well and even the odd Flemish mercenary.

And I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the people and cultures of Lowland Scotland reflect a wonderful mixture of Gaelic, Brythonic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse origins. In my own Scots-Irish ancestry there are Gaelic surnames like McCoy and Campbell but also surnames like Culbertson (possibly originally Cuthbertson), Breckenridge and Widney which appear to be Anglo-Saxon.

Anyway if you ever need any help researching your family tree, feel free to send me a PM. I find genealogy an awful lot of fun too -- in fact I'm pretty much obsessed, and would be happy to help![/quote]

Wow, this is so informative, thank you all so much...I always wondered just who all were included in the Scot-Irish bunch.

[Dendrias]

Well, Jake, that was interesting. Thank You.

"Eckenrothin" is, I firmly think, the female form of "Eckenroth". I've seen this gender-marking before. It's quite common with a lot of German words for professions, but not for names anymore.
Funnily enough, from a German perspective, "Eckenroat" is further away from "Eckenroth" than "Eckenrode" is.