Eymann / Iman Family Research - where to start?

Dear family genealogists,

we all are now doing our family research using the internet, and there is a multitude of different options how to begin. In this post, I try to clarify where my material comes from, where I store it, how you can access it, and how I distinguish correct from guessed information.

First of all, more and more material becomes available. Not all of it is behind a paywall, regardless of whether Ancestry or MyHeritage want you to pay for that. However, if you are already a member, I curate one actual database at MyHeritage (at https://www.myheritage.de/site-family-tree-384883/eymann) and I do a snapshot of it from time to time, to store it at Ancestry (at https://www.ancestry.de/family-tree/tree/196799439). Both websites, however, are only accessible to you AFTER you have paid for a membership. If you want to get a quick and free look without being a member, I have a database snapshot also at a French website Geneanet, (https://gw.geneanet.org/teymann_w?lp=0).

You might consider it convenient, to have so many entry points. However, it is not easy to keep all the records in sync. So please be aware, that I actualize frequently on MyHeritage, and not so frequent at Ancestry or Geneanet. To add complexity, my records have first been digitized in the 1990s, and since then, other fellow family members integrated them in their trees. By digging deeper in the archives, I found inconsistencies and errors, and corrected them in my tree - this is still an ongoing task. Sometimes, those corrections did not make it to the many other family trees out there. So I advise you: please do not take my entries (or others) for granted just because they are stored in any family database. Try to check for official sources and archives: birth, marriage and death registers; immigrant records.

A good source for records is https://www.familysearch.org/en/. If you are looking for German records (or the correct name and geographics for a location), check with https://gedbas.genealogy.net/?lang=en. For French records, Geneanet (see above), and for US records, also Ancestry.

Non-family Eymann / Iman / Eimann

When searching the usual databases, I stumbled over other families that bear the same surname but do not come out of Germany. I would be happy to know more about these from researchers who specialize on regions:

1. Iceland: Grimur Gislason Eyman, b. 1860, d. 1937, is the father of an Eyman family from Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada. I have not so much information about where this family comes from. His middle name Gisla-son is in nordic name-giving tradition "the son of Gisli". Grimur's father is a Gisli Sigurdsson (b.1828); no "Eyman" in his family name and I have no idea where this originally comes from.

2. Estonia/Finland: there are several people with a family name of "Eiman", e.g. descendants from Ludvi Eiman b. 1823. I am still collecting and structuring the data given here.

3. Austria: some Eymann records can be found in Lower Austria/Niederösterreich, e.g. Michael Eymann (1759-1842), Magdalena Eyman (b. 1799), or Wenzel Filiz Eimann (b.1848, m. 1879 with Franziska Fischer).

4. Bretagne region of France: starting with Yves Eyman (b. ca. 1794) m. Anne Kouredand, there are some entries with Eyman names that are not well connected. There is some possibility that the correct name is "Tymen" and that all the Eyman entries from Finistere are transcription errors.

5. I found some entries with the "Iman" surname in families coming from Asia, and even some Jewish entries.

6. According to the Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022, Iman is also a surname derived from a personal name based on Arabic īmān ‘belief faith’ (see the Koran 25).

This is the phonetic name all over the world, and there is probably no connection between any of these. I still even have some isolated families within the German-speaking countries, which I will take up in another post.

Loose Strands

Some days ago, after having received a fresh backup of the genealogical data from Wolfgang, I took up research again. Trying to avoid Anc* and MyHe* for uploading the fresh data, so that everybody in the family can benefit from the data without having to pay for it, I discovered Wikitree.  However, Wikitree does not allow me to upload GEDCOM, and it requires to give proper sources for each data entered.

Familysearch does also have a new and better look, and thus I turned there to get some credible source material. My main interest currently is to better sort out who emigrated from Steffisburg, and who was left back. We know from Ernst Müllers "Geschichte der bernischen Täufer" that 1671 a large group of 700 anabaptists emigrated, and that Hans, Hans and Ulrich Eymann were part of that group. What we don't know, is how they were related to each other (current guess is that Hans and Hans were father and son, and Ulrich is a brother of the father).

So I turned to Familysearch to check for Eymann entries in official documents in the 1600s in Switzerland. There are only 4 entries. Disappointing. Let us check again, and relax the writing of the name; at that time, only a few people could write and they would note the name as they heard it. Let's try for Eiman, in the 1600s. Success! There are several entries in Steffisburg! We have one name we already know, that is Hans Eiman b.1623 m. Anna Opliger. And we have Hans Eiman b. 1630 m. Katharina Roth. Which one is the Hans who emigrated? The entries here are for child baptism's; were they anabaptists, or not?


Out of curiosity, I tried to search for the first sources for Germany. I expected to find the first Swiss emigrant's children in Ibersheimer Hof or Sioner Hof for about 1670s/1680s, and some Alfhausen Eymann's some time earlier. Imagine my surprise, when I found an entry for the baptism of Anna Eymann, b. 1585, in a small town near Stuttgart. Does that mean that there is another family with the same surname in Germany, or is that an earlier emigration?

Links to available books on Swiss and Palatine genealogy and emigration

Julius Billeter (ca. 1900): A collection of Swiss surnames, http://kunden.eye.ch/swissgen/sursou-e.htm#Billeter

Albert B. Faust (1920): Lists of Swiss emigrants in the eighteenth century to the American colonies (1920), https://archive.org/details/listswissemigrant01fausrich

Daniel I. Rupp (1927), A collection of upwards of thirty thousand names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French and other immigrants in Pennsylvania from 1727-1776 ... = Chronologisch geordnete Sammlung von mehr als 30,000 Namen von Einwanderern in Pennsylvanien aus Deutschland, der Schweiz, Holland, Frankreich u. a. St. von 1727 bis 1776 ... (1927): https://archive.org/details/collectionofupwa00rupp


William J. Krehbiel (1953): History of one branch of the Krehbiel family. https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE84567&from=fhd

Olga A. Hirschler (1966): The Altleiningen Krebills 1730-1966. A genealogical and historical report. http://www.mdhervey.com/xtra_pages/archive/KREBILL/KREBILL.PDF

Many more books can be found at the Family History Books library of the FHL.Searching for Eymann yields the following list: https://books.familysearch.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?fn=search&ct=search&mode=Basic&tab=default_tab&indx=1&dum=true&srt=rank&vid=FHD_PUBLIC&frbg=&vl%28freeText0%29=Eymann

A noteworthy author is Henry C. Smith (https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Smith%2C+C.+Henry%2C+1875-1948%22), who was a professor at Goshen College and wrote books on the history of the Mennonites in the US and in general. The link above will lead you to "The Mennonites of America" (1909) and "The Mennonites - A brief history" (1920).

 Of particular interest for me (working in academia), was how many other fellow genealogists have written books about their own Palatine families, and taken text parts to describe historical situations from each other. I am myself guilty (in an earlier post) to have used text from Kraig Ruckel, who very poetically described the situation shortly after 1700, when William Penn came to the Palatinate to hire immigrants for the newly founded Pennsylvania. If you look for the beginning sentence "The winter of 1708-1709 was very long and cold in the Rhineland", you find many websites and books from fellow genealogists: https://www.google.de/search?q=The+winter+of+1708-1709+was+very+long+and+cold+in+the+Rhineland&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&client=firefox-a&channel=nts&gfe_rd=cr&ei=3qgaVIqpGs6POuSEgcgM#rls=org.mozilla:de:official&channel=nts&q=%22The+winter+of+1708-1709+was+very+long+and+cold+in+the+Rhineland%22

The Migration from Europe to the US - Passenger Lists

A particular problem in our genealogy, especially when researching the origins of the Eymann/Iman family members in the US, is who, when and from where the ancestors immigrated. It is now well known that most immigrants arrived at Philadelphia, and only much later in New York, and we also know that the emigrants left Europe mostly in Le Havre (originating from Switzerland or the Alsace), or Rotterdam (originating from the Palatinate). For the Alfhausen Eymann's, some of those left through Bremen or Hamburg.

Back in 1997, I could browse through the Emigrants Card File Library of the Institut für pfälzische Geschichte und Volkskunde in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The following table is compiled from taking up these handwritten notes (at that time) [Numbers in square brackets are included for consistency with older versions of my database], later extended by using the Palatine Ships list and the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild.

Date	Passenger(s)	Ship	Starting Point	Destination
Septemb er 9th 1749	Jakob Eymann, b. 7/17/1725,  m. ca. 1746	"St. Andrew" arriving Philadelphia 9/9/1749. (Passenger List)	Niederrödern near Weißenburg/Elsaß (Wissembourg/Alsa ce)	Pennsylvania
October 27th 1764	Ulrich Eymann [6], b. 1708 Lohmühle, d. 1765 Lancaster, PA. m1. Maria Fuchs, d. 1757 Germany. m2. 1757 Maria Agathe Essig, b. 1710/1715 Alsenbrück.	Emigrated together with ship "Hero" arriving Philadelphia 10/27/1764. (Passenger List)	Lohmühle, Palatinate	Pennsylvania
unknown	Christian Eymann [62], son of Ulrich Eymann (above)	unknown, emigrated separately ("followed his father soon").	Lohmühle, Palatinate	Lancaster Co., PA, later Conestago Tp., PA.
March 25th 1786	Eymann with unknown surname	unknown (no ship found listed for that date)	Lohnsfeld near Rockenhausen, Palatinate	Pennsylvania "brought Henrich Rhein in Northumberland Co., PA, a book of religious content".
After 1787	Johannes Eymann, m. 1787 Lohmühle to Elisabeth Würtz, b. 1769.	Emigrated after 1787.	Lohmühle, Palatinate	unknown
After 1840	Peter Eymann, b. 4/8/1827 in Langmeil, baptized 1840, parents: Christian Eymann and Katharina Franck	unknown	Langmeil, Palatinate	unknown
June 7, 1845	Jakob Eymann, m1. 11/28/1826 Maria Risser in Biedesheim. Emigrated 1845. m2. 1830/1840) Maria Krehbiel (Father: Christian Krehbiel), b. 07/22/1807 Weierhof. One Child Jakob from second marriage d. 9/4/1839 Biedesheim.	The ship Rockall from Le Havre to New York, June 7, 1845	Biedesheim, Palatinate	unknown
May 31st 1845	Elisabeth Eymann [55123], b. 8/19/1826 Biedesheim, daughter of Jakob Eymann and Anna, b. Eymann, m. 3/3/1845 Jakob Risser in Biedesheim (parents: Johann Risser and Katharina Weber).	Emigrated 05/31/1845 from Le Havre, France to USA.	Biedesheim, Palatinate	unknown
March 20th 1847	Abraham Eymann [63127], b. 2/11/1829 Langmeil-Alsenbrück, son of Johannes Eymann and Anna Leisy, Wäschbacherhof. Siblings: Anna, Christian, Jakob, Johannes, Peter. .	Emigrated 3/20/1847 to USA. (Source: Bonkhoff: "Die Langmeiler Sekte", Blätter für pfälzische Kirchengeschic hte und religiöse Volkskunde, 45. Jg., 1978, S.56f.)	Langmeil-Alsenbrüc k, Palatinate	unknown
April 19th 1847	Peter Eymann, son of Christian Eymann,	emigrated 4/19/1847	Langmeil-Alsenbrüc k, Palatinate	unknown
February 27th 1848	Christian Adam Eymann, Baker	emigrated 2/27/1848 (secret, "heimlich") to USA [63128?]	unknown	unknown
March 1848	Christian Eymann, b. emigrated together with 2 others in March 1848. [63128?].		Wäschbacherhof or Winnweiler, could have lived also Weierhof,	unknown
Before 1849	Johannes Eymann [55124], b. 8/3/1829 in Biedesheim, son of Jacob and Anna Eymann.	"Emigrated before 1852"	Biedesheim	1849 in Cleveland, Ohio ("worked as a saddler in Cleveland, Ohio"), 1852 in Franklin, Iowa. m. 10/6/1854 in Donnellson, Iowa to Johanna Krehbiel of Albisheim, b. 1/1/1835.
February 22nd 1851	Anna Eymann [63129], b. 12/16/1831 Wäschbacherhof, Jakob Eymann [6312C], Johannes Ey., b. 7/14/1833 Wäschbacherhof, Peter Eymann, b. 4/1/1842 Wäschbacherhof.		Wäschbacherhof
August 4, 1852	A large group of Palatine emigrants, traveling together. The list mentions some Eymann names as acquaintances, but it is not clear to me if they were actually on the ship or if they met and married later.	The ship Samuel M. Fox, from Le Havre to New York
September 27, 1852	Peter Eymann and his family	The ship Havre from Le Havre to New York
August 17, 1872	Gerhard Eymann (travelling alone at age 15(!)) of the Alfhausen family.	The ship Main from Bremen to New York,
After 1874	Peter Eymann, b. 3/6/1861 in Langmeil, baptized 1874	emigrated after 1874	Langmeil
1881	Elisabeth Eymann [631744], baptized 1881	emigrated 1881	Sembach	"died in USA soon after her arrival". (Source: menn. Kirchenbuch Sembach (A. Ruby, Diedesfeld)
March 12th 1881	Eimann, Christian, b. 23 Mar 1839, age 42, mason, with his sons Paul, b. 15 Mar 1870, age 11 and Christian, b. 15 Mar 1869, age 12. (Source: Ships Passengers List, Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas)	With Ship "Amsterdam" from Rotterdam to New York, arrived 12 Mar 1881 (Passenger List)
After 1883	Friedrich Eymann, b. 9/20/1869 Lohmühle, baptized Sep 2nd 1883, Vater: Jean Eymann and Barbara Becke.	Emigrated after 1883.	Lohmühle
28 Aug 1885	Eymann, Rudolf,b .07 Sep 1844, age 41, farmer, his wife, Johanna, b. 02 Sep 1864,age 21 and their children Anna, b. 29 Aug 1880, age 5, Heinrich, b. 29 Aug 1881, age 4 and Lisa, b. 28 Sep 1884, age 11 months. (Source: Ships Passengers List, Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas)	With Ship "Salier" from Bremen to New York, arrived: 28 Aug 1885 (Passenger List)
After 1889	Jakob Daniel Eymann b.1/6/1876 Langmeil, baptized 1889,   Parents: Johann Daniel Eymann and Barbara Eymann.	emigrated after 1889.	Langmeil
After 1900	Walter Eymann, b. 1899 Göllheim		Göllheim	occupation: bank clerk, last postal adress was apartado postal 7192, Mexico City, Mexico (invalid since 1978)
January 1911	Eugen Christian Eymann, b. 3/18/1899 Weidenthal, parents: Jakob Christian Eymann and Frieda Kunz, m. 1/1/1925 Los Angeles, CA to Lydia Dirks.	Emigrated in January 1911	Weidenthal	last postal adress: 2624 North 22nd Ave., Phoenix AZ 85009 (invalid since 1974). Children: Eugen Christian Eymann, b. 7/3/1926, Paul Eymann, b. 11/26/1928.
February 1911	Jakob Christian Eymann [631659]., b. 3/7/1872 Langmeil,   parents: Jakob S. Eymann, peasant and Elisabeth K. Graf. m1. 6/3/1897 Heiligenmoschel to Frieda Kunz, m2. 1/10/1910 Weidenthal to Friederike Schmitt.	Emigrated in February 1911 to USA with wife and 4 Children: Karl Jakob, Eugen Christian, Philipp Hermann, Katharina Elisabeth.	merchant in Weidenthal	Last postal adress: 1018 East 81th Street, Los Angeles CA 90000 (invalid since 1974). Returned in 1951 alone to Neustadt/Weinstr .

More to find at http://search.freefind.com/find.html?pageid=r&id=45264389&query=Eymann&ics=1&fr=0. On a personal note: "#*§% Ancestry paywall"!