I have been looking into my Siffrinn line for years. I have poked, prodded, scratched, looked over and under and around and been wrong many more times than I have been right. My father knew even less than I did about his mother’s family and where his grandfather came from.
I wondered all along if the spelling of the name had been changed and that was the problem I was having. No matter what I entered, Siffrinn or Siffrin, in the ancestry search, I only came up with the relatives I knew and some optional spelling of the last name as Siegfried or Sifferman.
Persistence has paid off. I didn’t realize that the day I found the marriage record information for William Siffrinn to his sister-in-law Caroline Everhard Siffrinn I had the key to break the wall. With the names of his parents and his birth date I would be able to make the bridge from the USA to Germany and relatives.
I have been finding more information on family members on family search, building out Louis and Caroline Siffrinn’s children’s birth order. I was also able to fill in Caroline’s siblings and parents. It was then I decided to try another search on Louis and William’s parents on ancestry that finally results for the family showed up. There was the Siffrinn (Siffrin) line from Louis and William to their father, Johann, Grandfather Johannes, Great grandfather Jakob, and Great-great grandfather Philipp, taking the line back to the mid-1700s.
The only difference in the last name when arriving to the states was the addition of an “n” to the last name. It seems that the name may have started as Siveri at some point years ago. I noticed it listed as an optional spelling in the other genealogies of the Siffrin line. I would be interested in knowing more about the spelling variation.
I noticed in the details of my 6th great grandfather Philipp, he was a glassmaker, as was my 5th great grandfather Jakob. My second great grandfather was also a Glassblower and worked in Norristown, Pennsylvania at a glass factory. My great grandfather started out as a Glassblower and later became a painter and paperhanger.
After my first marriage, we bought a beautiful house in the country that had been built around the time of the Great Depression. The original family was well off and the house was decorated in the finest manner of the time. All of the rooms were wallpapered and the floor covered in a custom made rug over beautifully finished oak hardwood floors. The wallpaper hadn’t been touched since the day it was put up and it was showing wear. We began tearing it off. As I worked my way around the living room and reached the fireplace I noticed hand writing on the wall. My great grandfather had wallpapered the house, it was his signature was on the wall.
From the trees that I found I noticed that my 3rd great grandfather and all of his siblings were born in Schoeneck, Lothringen, France. Their father was born in Ehlingen, Saarland, Germany, but their mother was born in Schoeneck, Lothringen, France also and they were married in Forbach, Lothingen, France. Previously the Siffrin line was in Ehlingen, Friedrichsthal, and Bildstock Germany. My 2nd great grandfather was born in Merchweller and documents show that my great grandfather and his brother William were born in Stolberg, Germany.
The family seemed to be used to moving a lot. I found a new address for them every two years while members were living in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Even though Philadelphia and Kane, Pennsylvania are at opposite sides of the state and a five hour trip on paved highways today, an unimaginable trip in the late 1880s early 1900s, many of them moved multiple times between the cities.