Researching Various Names

What’s in a Name?

Written by Richard W. Koontz 1996
The Lawrence Register thanks Richard for using this wonderful guide to tracing a “name.” 

This article suggests that the traces are often in plain view. If you are looking for that needle in a haystack, it helps to know what it looks like. And if figuratively, you’re holding your name in one hand and looking through the records for names like it. You notice there is a problem.

You are expecting to find an old needle that looks like your needle. Unbeknownst to you, that needle is sitting right there in front of you, but it looks like a horseshoe to your eyes. And if you look for your needle, you’ll overlook your horseshoe. Let me explain what I mean… 

Some clues on finding your “lost” ancestors. 

Many of us grow up wondering where our families came from. Eventually, we get around to doing some research, and as we return in time, we suddenly lose all track of our ancestors. Even though we may know where, roughly, they lived back in the early days, there is just no trace of them. 

Until a few years ago, I thought I knew how to find traces of my ancestors. I would look in census records for the ” Koontz ” and its other form, “Kuntz.” This method worked back to the early 1800s. But then my ancestors disappeared. I mean, they flat-out stopped appearing in any of the records. This article relates what I’ve learned while tracking these “lost” ancestors. 

My descent from the knowledge and into the dark depths of enlightenment began with Adam Rickaback. Adam was an early settler who, family legend said, married two of my long-forgotten ancestors’ daughters. His name caught my attention. Rickaback ought to be easy to find and might help me track my Koontz ancestors through a maze of families with the same name. So, each time I hunted for my own, I also hunted for Mr. Rickaback. 

Now, Adam was a trailblazer. Legend had it that he worked alongside Daniel Boone occasionally. Legend had it. He came from Virginia, went to North Carolina, went back to Virginia, then headed west with our family somewhere. Rather vague? Well, it was something. All I had to do was search the far western states (Kentucky and Ohio). 

I found him in Ohio, and I found a possible ancestor, somebody’s ancestor. Certainly not mine since it was spelled differently from how my family had always spelled it. 

You see, I found a John CUNS. One of the very earliest settlers of Ohio, he homesteaded land near Gallipolis, the site of the famous land scandal that brought a boatload of French settlers to this country. As I mentioned, I knew that Cuns was not my ancestor. Or if he was, it was a strange fluke. Some illiterate census takers, no doubt. Working from hope (desperation?) I claimed him anyway. And I corrected the record in my notes, and my records clearly show that John Koontz settled in Ohio. Whose John, I still didn’t know. 

What bemused me at the time was Adam. In Ohio, it was spelled Richaback. Another misspelling. But in working those records, I found him in some nearby records but spelled Rickabough. 

Now, I’m not too dumb. An illiterate census taker wouldn’t confuse “Rik-A-Bak” with “Rik-A-Bow.” But I just noted it for the moment and went my way. That is, for a year or so. 

I returned again and again to Adam. I started looking for variations on his name and immediately found him. Rickaback. Richaback. Rickabough. Rickabaugh. And I looked further afield and found him again. Adam Richeybaugher. And Adam Rickeybougher. And Rickeybower. Only because his name was so rarely did I take the leap of faith and decide this was my ancient friend. 

So, logically, I wondered if my own research on Koontz was missing something. So, I began looking further and tracking connections, misspellings, alternate spellings, and so forth. And I hit pay dirt. I have found our name, which should be spelled K-O-O-N-T-Z, spelled in the most bizarre and unusual forms. 

I mean, unusual, as in KUOUNTZ, and bizarre, as in SHANTZ. 

How did this come to be? 

How can anyone misspell KOONTZ so badly as to become KUOUNTZ, or worse, KANTZ and SHANTZ? And can you explain KEKOUZE??? 

Well, we’re dealing with an assortment of causes. 

Sometimes an original record was transcribed from a hard-to-read copy, in dim lighting, by an overworked researcher or clerk. Such transcriptions led to some surprisingly bad transcriptions. For instance, one ancestor got herself recorded as Elizabeth COENOE. 

Sometimes the name carrier, my illustrious pioneer ancestor, was recorded by some other pioneer. That other pioneer, not having the foresight to carry ledgers and laptop computers with him, recorded what he remembered a few days (weeks?) later. And, I am sure that another pioneer was illiterate, came from some other regional part of Germany, and lacked the forethought to ask my ancestor exactly how he spelled his name.

So when he recorded the name, he did exactly what all the other illiterate recorders of the day did: he got my ancestor’s name wrong. I ask you, a literate researcher: would you misremember KOONTZ and write it down as KUNCE? No, of course not. 

Other times, the recorder is a flat-out nationalist bigot that knew I would be trying to find my German ancestor. In this fashion, Juan COUNS was set down in some records of Spanish Missouri. Good old John Coontz has intentionally hidden again… 

To make matters worse, some regional ethnic groups intentionally mangled the nationalities and bloodlines. This wasn’t always one-sided. All ethnic groups cooperated in this effort. One fine, upstanding English family named COONS moved into an Amish community in Ohio. Years later, their descendants (named KOONTZ) were fruitlessly tracking their German ancestry. Their real name was originally MACCONES, but I didn’t need to tell you that, did I? 

So, where has my research taken me? Into the depths of ultimate confusion. I have gotten back in time only to 1774. I am reasonably sure that my ancestor, Philip Counce, settled in Rockingham County, Virginia, and fought in the very first battle of the Revolutionary War. Being historians, you know that the first battle was fought in Virginia, not at Concord or Lexington. It was fought on October 10, 1774, at Point Pleasant, Virginia. 

As an aside, Point Pleasant used to be in Virginia. But over the long years, it has shifted its location rather noticeably. Perhaps thanks to the miracles of Plate Tectonics and the shifting of the earth’s crust, it is no longer even near Virginia. In fact, today, you have to travel all the way to the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers across from Ohio to visit the old battle site. 

Which, curiously, brings me back to Gallipolis, Ohio. If you stand at Point Pleasant looking across the Ohio River, you face Gallipolis. Although there is no record that Philip Counce returned to Point Pleasant, there are records that militia members from Rockingham County were based here off and on over several years. And Philip was a militia member for a long time. So maybe he went home and told his family about the fertile soil? And, perhaps not by coincidence, one of his sons was John L. Koontz, who did settle in Gallipolis. And yes, the John Cuns of record was John L. Koontz, son of Philip Counce. 

This brings me to my record-setting “Name Log.” 

So far, I’ve found 89 different ways to spell the name of my ancestors or their descendants. 

They are, in alphabetic order: 

COANTS – COATS – COENOE – COENS – COENTZ – CONES – CONTES – CONTZ – CONZ – COONCE – COONES – COONS – COONTS – COONTZ – COONZ – COOTS (?) – COUNCE – COUNS – COUNSE – COUNTER (!) – COUNTS – COUNTZ – COUNZ – COURTS – COWNS -CUENZ – CUENZE – CUNCZE -CUNETZ – CUNITZ – CUNSE – CUNTZ – CUNTZE – CUNZ – CUNYS – CUNZE – CYNTZ – CYNZ – CYNTZE – KANTZ – KEENTZ – KEKOUZE ! – KENS – KIENS – KIENTZ – KINS – KINSS – KINTZ – KOEHN – KUEHN – KOENTZ – KOONCE – KOONES – KOONS – KOONSE – KOONTEZ – KOONTSE – KOONTZ – KOONZ – KONES – KONT – KONTS – KONZE – KOOTS (?) – KOOTZ – KOUNS – KOUNSE – KOUNTZ – KROUNTZ – KUENZ – KUENTS – KUENZE – KUN – KUNCE – KUOUNTS – KUOUNTZ – KUNTAS – KUNTES – KUNTS – KUHNS – KUNS – KUNSE – KUNSA – KUNTES – KUNTZ – KUNZ – KUNTZE – KUNZE 

and even SHANTZ (honest!)

WHY IS THE NAME SPELLED THAT WAY?

Each week, I conclude I’ve “found all the spellings.” And then I find another resource, and yet another one. Or three. The most inexplicable so far was COUNTER. This doesn’t seem very close to the name KOONTZ to you and me. Yet it is the recorded name for a land transfer applied for by Henry KOUNTZ in West Virginia back in the 1800s.

The application for land transfer was made correctly and signed by Henry Kountz. My best guess is the clerk took the application in person, heard him pronounce the name, and turned to do something else for a moment when he left. Then he turned back and wrote down what he thought he remembered. 

How you write the name today is interesting but irrelevant. 

How somebody recorded it back then matters more. If they drop an “N,” the name COONTS becomes COOTS. It happens. Especially when they are living in a small town near Brock’s Gap, VA. The town was named in honor of Dietrich Kautz, a feisty old Dutchman living in “Germany.” This tiny holdout of the traditions of Tiutschland got its name fixed, too. Coots Store is still there, but the names and traditions have all been changed… And today, Elizabeth Coonts is remembered as Elizabeth Coots. Ah, well. 

When they misread an application in the mid-1800s, the name KOONTZ reverts back to KOUNTZ, a spelling that had been dropped half a century earlier. Thus we have Martin Koontz creating the Kountz Addition to the Iowa town of Dahlonega. 

When the transaction was verbal, the Revolutionary War soldier Philip Küntz became Philip Kantz. 

Think about that one. You read that as “Cants” with a short “a”? Try again. Read it as Kaintz, with the long “a.” Then consider that Küntz, pronounced by a German from Maryland, might have been heard as “Keentz,” which borders closely on “Kaints” if you don’t get your umlaut right. And if the militia orderly was Irish and used to hearing other sound patterns, he might have written down precisely what he thought he heard. He carefully preserved what he thought the man was saying. 

I am still figuring out how John Contes was recorded as John Kekouze. Did he have a stutter? Same guy, same home, same family.  What you want to consider is this: don’t ever discard information about a person because you think he “must be” somebody else’s ancestor. Unless, of course, your name is Carter or something like Smith. (Which only has about fifteen variations). That person you just scanned past could be the missing link. 

For example, I wrote a note to a COONS some time ago, asking if he had any trace of Koontz in his line. Of course, he knew he was English, and no Germans were in the line. Then a month ago, he put his family tree on the Internet, and I read it. The wife of his gggggg… ancestor happened to be very similar to a German family name I remembered, transcribed into an English form.

So I checked my records. Guess what? His family name was Counts before going to Kentucky and Cuntze before that. Case closed. His ancestor, and Rear Admiral Coontz’s ancestor, are one and the same. And they both came from the town of Siegen in Germany. Of course, since then, I’ve wondered if maybe some of that line wasn’t tied together by guesswork. 

Where does the name come from? This will drive you batty if you want “the truth.” If you accept chaos as part of life, you’ll enjoy this… 

Most of what follows are taken from a blue pocketbook called the “Hans Bahlow Deutsches Namenlexikon,” which can be found in many Family History Centers. 

The name stems from the popular and respected Emperor Conrad, who goes ‘way’ back. Just as many people in America carried the names George Washington as their first and middle names, so did many in Germany name their sons after their emperor. 

Depending on the part of Germany you lived in, Conrad was also pronounced “Kunrad,” the Latin form of a shortened German phrase “kühn im Rat,” which means either “shrewd counsellor” or “bold counsellor.” 

But the parents didn’t call their sons Conrad. They shortened them, as we all do. Much as “Friedrich” carries the moniker “Fritz,” so does Conrad or Kunrad turn into “Kunz.” 

Kunrad was the second most popular name in Germany at the time. The most popular name was Heinrich (derived from Emperor Heinrich). From that stems a German phrase: “Hinz und Kunz.” The phrase means “everyman” or “anyman,” depending on the context. 

Keep in mind that we are speaking of ‘way back’ to the dinosaurs. I mean, dragons, as in Siegfried slaying the dragon above the Rhine River. 

The choice of Conrad (pronounced Koan-rahdt), or Kunrad (pronounced Koon-rahdt), depended on where you lived. Commerce was limited, villagers kept in their villages, and dialects developed that ensured the differences were maintained or increased. 

As you move from Old High German, you see the formal name change from Kunrad to Kuonrat (pronounced Koo-Own-Rahdt) by the time Middle High German developed. (In the Middle Ages.) You also see a number of diminutives in use. We had Kuon, Kune, and Kunz. Two of these had further dimunitives: a “Künel” was a little Kune. And a “Künzel” was a little Kunz. So was a “Künzlein”, or “Künzli”. And so was a “Kuonschen,” which became “Koensgen.” 

By the “Courtly Romantic” period around 1800 in Germany, the diminutive “Kunz” was no longer used as a first name. By that time, the short form of Conrad had evolved to either Kuno or Kurt. 

Also, first names had long since moved into the family name position by this time. Just as in Sweden, where “Friedrich Johnson” was John’s son, “Conrad Kunz” may have at one point been Kunz’s son, where Kunz was a diminutive form of Conrad itself. Thinking of it in Swedish terms, Conrad Kunz was Conrad Conradson. 

Take notice of the “u” sound in these names. It can (sometimes) be a clue to the original location of a family. 

Kunz was not the only term used. We see another variant: up in the north Germanic areas of the Rhine plain, where they spoke “Platt Deutsch” or lowland German. There it took the form of “Köhn.” This, in turn, led to various names, such as Köhne, Köhnen, and Köhnke. And perhaps from that, we also see Conkel… 

Just south of that area, still in the Platt Deutsch dialect but in the Rhineland, you see the variations of Konert and Kohnert (pronounced with a long “o”). In Westfalen, you see Konertz, Coners, Conerding, and Conring (all with the long “o”). Along the border of France, in the Saar and the Alsace, you see Conz and Contz and Contze (again, all long “o”). All of these stem from the “ô” in the Platt Deutsch pronunciation, reflecting the “uo” pronunciation of Middle High German. 

Meanwhile, in middle and upper German areas, the evolution of names such as Kühne, Kühnel, Kühnemann, and Kühnzel. If you notice, instead of “uo” you have a kind of “eww” sound. In Schleswig you see Kuhnt and Kunat (pronounced with more of a “u”). 

Kuhnke and Kunath led to Kunisch in East Germany. For example, Kunke led to Kunitz, which relates to towns in Schleswig, Thuringen, and Brandenburg, also in the east. 

Whenever the names diverged, they stayed diverged. 

One condition: for example, a name such as “Kunst” does not appear to ever change over to the Coons variety. Kunst, Kunstler, Künster all stayed firmly in their niches. They are a different line entirely. 

Then you have the very early usages of “Cuncze von Cracow” (1388) and “Cuntz der Küntzel” (1382) in Kempten. These pop up again by 1675 in Siegen, up just east of Bonn in the Rheinland, as the name “Cuntze.” 

And a final exception is this: the religious exodus series that powered the entire region sent small groups of people out of Switzerland and up into Germany. It sent Huguenots from France to central Germany. For instance, you will find a “Kunz” from Basel, Switzerland, originally, which you notice appears to have come from northern Germany. 

Finally! Here is where you enter the American experience

When they came to this country, people of different nationalities recorded their names numerous times. The Germans, often bilingual or trilingual, took a low-profile position and accepted whatever the scribes, recorders, and taxmen said. A Schmidt would list his name that way in his own church but show up as Smith on a tax record. 

You probably would grimace if I related to the people who told the clerk they were “Heinrich Schmidt, from the Long Hill,” who got recorded as Henry Longhill. This instance is fiction, but only because I could not remember if it was Long Hill or Round Hill or the fellow’s first name. It happened more than once. 

What is more puzzling was the situation where one brother chose the name “Counts,” where another in the family chose “Koonce,” a third chose “Koontz,” and the father was either a “Kuntz” or a “Kunz,” and in one case, also “Cuntze”? While all this was happening, the taxmen wrote them down as “Counce.” It makes your head spin! [Note from Martha J. Martin-Kounse, my husband’s family, pronounces his last name as “Koounce,” even though it is spelled “Kounse”]

It wasn’t until about 1800 that they settled on one spelling and kept it from generation to generation. Even then, we stumble upon that English Coons family that became a Koontz. And a few reversions from Kuntz to Kuhns and even to Kuhn (but very rarely). 

I suppose you have read down to this point. Congratulations! I hope there was something here that helped you in your own research. 

In summary, you should widen your search. Seek out new spellings and write them down. And then, years later, you’ll discover that lost ancestor was in your file all along, which reminds me. I’ve got to retrace my steps. It looks like KIENZ was the guy I should have been tracking all along…