Decisions, decisions

 I've decided to remove the Wolgemuth and similar surnames from the Study after a friendly and forgiving of my laziness cohort @ WikiTree answered my question about the relationship between the Wormuth/Wormwood surnames and Wolgemuth.  The difference is, of course, the derivation; they're derived from the name of different wild plants.

While I've seen Wolgemuth used interchangeably with Wormuth, they are different names with different derivations so I'm dropping the former.  It will lightening the workload a bit.

Wormuth and Wormwood, however, are both names for Artemesia, also called wormwood and several individuals were known by both names.

I started a study of the US Censuses searching for variant spellings of Wormuth.  I have a lot more work to do (I'm only into the 1820 census) but I have discovered that:  

-- the Wormuths in Montgomery County, New York were scattered throughout the county;

-- there were Wormuths in Maine;

-- there were Wormuths in Ohio;

-- there were Wormuths in Pennsylvania.

In addition, as with most surnames, there are a scattering of Wormuths in various other states.

Doing this study will make it possible for me to follow certain individuals to see if there were definite migration trails.

It does not appear that the Wormuths were Palatines, but they married some Palatines.  I'm a member of the Palatine Migration Project @ WikiTree.  The Palatines came to this continent in 1710 and spread out from two settlements on opposite sides of the Hudson River.  The Project has a variety of listings of the Palatines who arrived on the 10 ships that survived the trip.  There are no Wormuths among those lists.

A Peter Wormuth, in Montgomery County, married Anna Fehling/Failing whose father, Henry, was among those who arrived.

So, the Wormuths arrived around the same time or pre-dated the Palatine arrival, as far as I can tell.

Wormuth Rock, Cherry Valley, NY

Our branch's furthest back ancestor, Peter Wormuth, was shown on one census to have been born in Montgomery County.  We will be visiting Montgomery County, New York, shortly to see if we can find evidence of him there.

However, since there were Wormuths in Pennsylvania, there is also a Montgomery County, PA, and I will have to investigate that possibility.

And, so it continues.

News

 Our thanks to Elyssa Olsen (Ihlefeldt) who guided us to the Wormuth family cemetery in Callicoon on Saturday, July 19, 2025.

We found it!  Actually her mom, Donna, found it a while ago.  Remember this photo?

Quite a few of us have a copy of this photo now.  Donna took this picture of our Peter Wormuth's headstone.  It's there, at the Wormuth family cemetery.  That was then/this is it today.  

broken.  We're going to try to have it repaired.  That's Elyssa, holding it.

Our thanks to Dylan and Olivia Olsen, Elyssa's kids, for cleaning the stone.

We had a great time; Elyssa, her kids, cousin Les Wormuth and me.

There are about 10 stones in the cemetery all clustered around the tree; the rest have no writing on them.  It's all overgrown.

I'm hoping the new owner will allow us to maintain the cemetery. It may take time to establish a relationship so be patient while we work on this.  

Hurray!!!

Name Variants

 Name variants in genealogy and family history research are a headache.  It means that you have to search for each of the variant spellings of a surname in every resource.  It takes time.  

At WikiTree, the preference, and expectation, is that there is one correct surname, but that just isn't true, and, in practice, what's used is the "last name at birth".  Unhappily, even that is often inaccurate.  Many of my ancestors were illiterate, rural people who neither read, nor wrote.  Reading and writing were not taught to many people for generations.  In addition, official records of births, marriages and deaths didn't begin until about 1881 and, even then, not everyone complied with registration.  Many babies were born at home.  Common law marriage was common.  People died at home and were buried on their own land.  The names written in documents were not written by the person themselves but by others who wrote what they heard and often the name is written differently within the same document.

Spelling had no "rules" until the mid-1800s and, again, even then, spelling rules evolved and "improved".  So, it's no wonder that names can have many variant spellings.

Add to that the mass of immigrants with languages in different scripts, like German, and variants are multiplied.  The history of any language can be very complex and confusing.  My given name, Lorraine, is a very modern spelling and is, apparently, derived from Lothairingen or Lothair.  Now tell me how Lothair became Lorraine.

Many variant spellings are just that, differences of one or two letters because spelling was inexact for generations:  Wormuth, Wormouth.  Individuals who wrote also had preferences that might differ from those of relatives.  My birth surname, O'Dell, alternates within my own family between Odell and O'Dell.  My mother's birth surname, Beismer, is a very modern spelling that has only existed for a few generations and that family line has as many as 52 reported variant spellings, some of them still in use.

So, just a few thoughts about the annoyance of surname variant spellings.  We keep finding new ones for Wormuth.