20 February 2013

Why you've never heard of Adolf Schicklgruber

Adolf Hitler's family tree is complicated. You will notice that the last name "Hitler" had many variations that were often used almost interchangeably. Some of the common variances were Hitler, Hiedler, Hüttler, Hytler, and Hittler. Alois Schicklgruber did change his name on January 7, 1877 to "Hitler," which was the only form of the last name that his son, Adolf, used
Text and family tree by Jennifer Rosenberg.

9 comments:

  1. I suspect it's quite common to find name variations when going back in time through a family tree. I started working on my family history a couple of years ago and have seen this on several lines; Robinson started out as Robeson, Powell started as Ap Howell and Stamps was formerly Stampe which evolved from D'Estampes.

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  2. Did he ever spell his first name with a ph? or was it always with an f?
    And, did you notice that one of his half-siblings originally had his mother's surname? I've heard of that happening in communities where the church marriage was after the birth of the child, or it never happened. Wonder what the story is there. And... I never knew he had a sister who lived until 1960 either. (Though, there is a book by Jackie French I think that used to be studied in schools here called "Hitler's Daughter.")

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  3. It looks like Hitler's father married his own cousin's daughter. But why did Hitler's father take his mother's name?

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  4. Wow.. Hitler had a younger sister (Paula) who survived him. I didn't know there was any family. She lived to 1960.

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  5. Big Boppa
    An interesting spelling change occurred in my own family. My great-grandfather's last name was spelled Spies (Pronounced SPEES, with a long e.) He was of German descent, but he and his family had lived in and around Evansville, Indiana for many years. Nonetheless, during WW I he decided it was advantageous to change the spelling of his last name to Speis, to avoid any of the neighbors thinking ill of him. (Go back and look at how you would normally pronounce his name with the original spelling.)

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  6. There's an n in the title (well, two, actually).

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