Sorting through Siffrin Genealogy

It started out as barely a name and has turned into 50 pages and 10 generations of Siffrin genealogy facts. To say I know a lot more about this line of my father’s family is a massive understatement.

The name has taken on multiple spelling variations from the mid-1700s until now. It seems the progression was something along the lines of Zeverii, Ziverii and Ziwerii became Siveri. From Siveri the spelling changed to Siverin or Siffering before becoming Siffrin. For some unknown reason, my great grandfather spelled the name Siffrinn. To keep my documentation straight in my family tree I have used the Siffrin spelling for all those members before my great grandfather and Siffrinn for those following. I have noted the difference in spelling with the Siffrin spelling.

I have traced the family back to Friedrichsthal, Saarland, Germany at the birth of my sixth great grandfather, Philipp (Siverin) Siffrin around 1745. The city of Friedrichsthal has its own interesting history. I am wondering, since having my DNA results returned showing Scandinavian roots, if this family actually came from Scandinavia. I have found Sievers listed as fourth cousins and they seem to be located in northern Germany. Could the family name actually originate in Norway or Sweden? Were there glassmakers in Norway and Sweden in the late 1700s?

Count Friedrich Ludwig of Nassau-Ottweiler inherited land from his father including Nassau and Ottweiler. The small town of Friedrichsthal was named after its founder and the glassworks was established in 1723. Coal mines from the area were used to fuel the furnaces of the glass factories. For the next couple hundred years the village would prosper.

Over the next 150 years my ancestors can be found in the Friedrichsthal area. It seems that most of them were glasmachers, not glasbläser (glassblowers). The difference between a glasmacher and a glasbläser, as I have been told, is that glasmachers make sheet or window glass, where glasbläser, create blown glass objects.

Around 1882, my great great grandparents and their family immigrated to the United States from Germany. They settled in Norristown which is near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At that time my great great grandfather can be found in a Norristown Directory listed as a glassblower. I don’t know if the same distinction was made in the states between glassblowers and glassmakers like there was in the German glass industry. Grandfather Ludwig would die in Norristown in 1888. My Grandmother Lena (Caroline) would marry his brother William in Norristown two years later and remain in the Norristown area until 1900.

From Norristown some of the family would move on to Kane, Pennsylvania and continue to work in the glass industry.