Where the story begins. The Scherschel story starts in north central Germany during the Late Medieval era. From here, the family began to spread through the various duchies and principalities of the Holy Roman Empire in all directions. The largest concentraion of Scherschel descendants would eventually find themselves in what is known today as the German states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wurttemberg by the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. The Scherschel surname still thrives in these areas to this day.
Adjacent to the origination country of the Scherschel family, Austria became home to many Scherschel households during the 17th through 19th Centuries. In particular, many Scherschel families could be found in the Tryol region of today’s western Austria.
One of the more rarefied branches of the Scherschel family comes from a descendant line that migrated from Germany to the Austro-Hungarian empire between the 18th to 19th Centuries. The region of Temeswar (Timisoari) was a central metropolis of the Austro-Hungarian empire where many cultures from Europe collected. One of the groups of immigrants were called “Banat (Danube) Swabian” Germans who had slowly migrated from Alsace and western Germany, through Austria and eventually to this area.
Immigrants were encouraged to settle in the Banat by the Austrian emperors in the 18th century to repopulate a frontier province bordering the Turkish empire, and to add ethnic European Christians to the population of the newly occupied region. The Germans were offered free land and the privilege of keeping their language and religion. The Crown was seeking Roman Catholic immigrants. Most of the German settlers came from Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Bavaria, Franconia, and the Palatinate. A small group can be traced to Middle Germany. It is unclear how the group came to be called the Banat Swabians, but it is probably because the majority registered and embarked from the Swabian city of Ulm. They were transported on the Ulmer Schachteln (barges) down the Danube to Budapest or Belgrade, whence they set off on foot for their new homes.
The colonists were generally the younger sons of poor farming families, who saw little chance of success at home. Under Maria Theresa, they received financial support and long-term tax relief. Craftsmen were financially encouraged, as were teachers, doctors, and other professionals. Over the decades and more, the German spoken by these colonists became separate from that developing in Germany, particularly after its unification. It became known as Donau-Swabian, an archaic form of the language. Those who came from French-speaking or linguistically mixed communes in Lorraine maintained the French language (labelled Banat French or Français du Banat), as well as a separate ethnic identity for several generations.
Beginning with 1893, because of the Magyarisation policies of the nationalistic Hungarian State, some Banat Swabians began to relocated. Today, Temeswar is officially located in western Romania. However, in 1907 a Scherschel descendant from Temeswar decided to immigrate to Chicago, Illinois, USA. This is the most recent known branch of the Scherschel lineage to have made the transatlantic resettlement.
The summers of 1836, 1837 and 1838 brought the first groups of Scherschel settlers from Germany across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. The various households diversified their locations through the Ohio Valley, Indiana and Illinois. From these original settlers, the family would eventually expand to all 50 states as of the beginning of the 21st Century. With the prosperity and opportunity that the America’s provided, the Scherschel name has flourished and grown to thousands of descendants in this nation.
The region of Alsace Lorraine within the current day borders of France found many Scherschel households settling there. This region lies directly across the border from Saarland, Germany. Like Saarland, Alsace Lorraine has endured a rather volatile history of occupation and administrative control between various entities and states throught he centuries. Yet, today, even with the every changing boundaries of this region throughout history, it has provided our family with a unique flare of French influence and culture, to enhance what originally was exclusively Germanic in nature. Numerous Scherschel families still reside in this area of esatern France.
Several households of the ancestral line made the relocation to Luxembourg around the time of the 1880s. Given the close proximity to Saarland, Germany which one of the major concentrations of the Scherschel name, it ws only a matter of time before the family found its way to this neighboring nation.
In the early and mid 20th Century, the Scherchel surname finally made its way to the Great White North. Canada now serves as the most recent addition to the ancestral line as home to several generations of Scherschel descendants. The Scherschel name initially landed in Saskatchewan where it then relocated to the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia where descendants reside today.
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