Benitz Origins

(Last updated: Sunday April 26, 2009)

    Of German origin, the name is used both as a family surname and by two villages in today's Germany. 

Benitz Name 

    In the early to mid-1800's persons with the family surname of Benitz emigrated to the Americas from two sovereign German states that were later incorporated into the German Empire, the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Kingdom of Prussia.  Those from Baden were likely the first to go, leaving during the 1830's and 1840's from the area around Freiburg-im-Breisgau, particularly from the village of Endingen.  During the 1870's and 1880's a second wave of Benitz emigrants left from the Freiburg area and from the Zemmin area in Prussia.   We don't know if the emigrants from the two areas were related but it seems highly unlikely.  Before the 20th century common people simply did not move around that much  and to do so required the permission of the powers that be.  It is more likely a coincidence of spelling. 

Endingen Benitz: Evolution of the family surname

    Böniz / Bönitz to Benitz: Prior to about 1840 the spelling of the family surname in Endingen varied according to its pronunciation and the whims of the church record keepers (and we suppose the flow of wine from leaky barrels).  German is a phonetic language and its spelling was not standardized until the early 19th century when many adopted Goethe's spelling.  It is also very likely our ancestors at that time were illiterate and, therefore, had no standard spelling.  Most records in Endingen of the 1700's spell the surname as Böniz.   During the early 1800's the spelling was more varied, including:  Böniz, Bönitz, Boeniz, Boenitz, and Beniz - the German ö sounds similar to a deep English e, almost like u, somewhere between Beun-it's and Burn-it's.  During the period 1830-1840 the surname of our ancestors coalesced into Benitz.   For those who emigrated to Spanish-speaking America, of the possible spellings the best are Benitz or Bennitz when these are pronounced in Spanish.  They are softer on the e and so come closest to the German pronunciation of Böniz.   During the 1830's Wilhelm and his cousin Alexander were spelling their surname Benitz (the third name shown in the box is Wilhelm's signature of 1837), as did their siblings when emigrating to the Americas.

   Note on common misspellings:  In the US, early census takers wrote the name down as they heard it pronounced and very seldom got it right - whether in California, Ohio, or Pennsylvania.  To research any set of records where the spelling of Benitz is dependent on how others heard it pronounced, try using Soundex and look for these attempts:

Family Religion

    Both Bönitz/Benitz family groups were Christian, but their faith varied according to their region of origin.  Those from the north, Prussia, were of Protestant faith.  Those from the south, including Baden, were of Roman Catholic faith.  Which leads to an intriguing question: Could it be that the southern Benitz's are displaced Roman Catholics from the north, forced south during the religious upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries? (Or was it vice versa?) Both churches in Endingen are Roman Catholic; originally of different orders today they form a single parish.

    Arriving in the Americas immigrants on occasion changed faiths.  Wilhelm Benitz was born in Endingen and was baptized as a Roman Catholic.  His children were most likely confirmed Roman Catholic yet also attended an Independent Presbyterian church in Oakland, California (per his son Alfred's diary, July & August 1873).  Later generations of his family married mostly into the British community in Argentina and were Anglican (a.k.a. Episcopalian).

Benitz Villages

   The two villages named Benitz are both located in the Great Northern Plain of Germany in what was Pomerania, absorbed by the Kingdom of Prussia during the 19th  century.   The most northern of the two lies inland about 20 kilometers directly south of the Baltic port of Rostock.   The other is located in north-central Germany about 75 kilometers north-east of Hanover (see maps).

    The first Benitz emigrants from Baden to the Americas came from the town of Endingen, 25 kilometers north-west of Freiburg-im-Breisgau, at the northern foot of the Kaiserstuhl.  They spoke Badischen, the Baden dialect of German.

    The Kaiserstuhl (Kaizer's Stool) is a picturesque protrusion of rolling green hills rising at the southern end of the flat farm lands between the Rhine River and the Black Forest (Schwarzwald).  Endingen is today one of the larger villages which circle the Kaiserstuhl, an area which has produced wine since Roman times.   With flat-lands facing it to the north, Endingen is surrounded by neatly tended hilly vineyards to its east, south, and west.

    In old letters, Endingen was addressed as: Endingen-im-Breisgau, Grand Duchy of Baden.  Today its correct reference is: Endingen-am-Kaiserstuhl, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.  On this site, we refer to it by either name or simply as Endingen.

Endingen am Kaiserstuhl, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, circa 1995

Endingen Benitz: Their social standing in a Baden village

    During the early 1800's, the Benitz's in Endingen were tradesmen: Wilhelm's father and grandfather were coopers (barrel-makers), while Alexander's father was a master dyer.   In the following paragraphs, Dieter Joos of Ueberlingen, Germany, describes the typical social organization of an early 19th. century Baden village (per e-mail received 14 Aug'99):

    The society of an common village in the area what is now called Baden - Wuerttemberg has rather sharply been separated into three classes: The first class were the wealthy farmers (ca 2-5 %) which possessed the big farms partly by their own but mostly by fief (?) (German = Lehen; Schupflehen, Erblehen) from a landlord or the church or a monastery. They also occupied the important village positions like prefect (German = Vogt), village judges etc. The second class were the common farmers ( ca 60-80 %). They possessed land also got by lief. This farmers worked hard but were usually able to earn so much as to guarantee a modest life for their families. The third class consisted of the day laborers (?) (German= Tageloehner) (ca 20-40 %). They worked for the other farmers for day wages. They possessed almost nothing and were very, very poor and had many many kids which died nearly all immediately after their birth.

    To each of the three classes typical occupations were usually associated : The occupation of the upper class was that which brought most money: innkeeper. The occupations of the middle class were: smith, cartwright, cooper, tailor, shoemaker etc. The occupation of the lower class were weaver, ropemaker etc.

    There was one profession which has to be considered separately: the millers. Generally they were rich often even very rich, but also they had a very bad moral image: first as it was said that they were all trickster (what surely comes near to truth) secondly as they were considered to be highly immoral. The last statement is based on the fact that the mills were generally located outside the village   (towns: outside of the fortification walls). So this was the very place for events which no society loves to tolerates within its own walls. - (And alas, a considerable number of my ancestors were millers!)

    What is important for family researchers is the fact, that penetrating the barriers of the social classes e.g. by marriage was nearly impossible. At the best a mixing only took place after disasters like war or plague. A consequence: all families within each class of a village and its neighbor villages (as long as they belonged to the same sovereign authority) are somewhat related. Good for finding relations, bad for separating the individuals. In a catholic village two third of all sons were named Johann or Jakob and two third of all daughters were named Maria or Anna. The rest was named after Saints especially the local ones.  Sometimes kids are called after the landlord when this was a beloved one. But this did not occur very often.

    Emigrants recruited mainly from the middle and lower class of the farmers. Upper class emigrants only show up when a farm has been handed over completely to one son (not too rare the youngest one!) and this heir gave to his brothers a stock for founding an new existence outside the village.

    Remark: What I described is to some extent typical for the areas in southern Germany. Other places especially in Northern Germany have had in some details divergent rules.

    In the following paragraphs, Rick & Sandy Schultz (e-mail received 1999) describe the trade of the barrel-maker, böttcher in German, cooper in English, tonelero in Spanish:

Endingen Benitz: Emigration to the Americas

    A glance at German history of the 19th century reveals why many of its citizens emigrated.  The economy of the Grand Duchy of Baden had suffered badly from Napoleon's invasion and resulting War of Liberation (1813-1814); a severe rise in prices led to widespread famine, eventually culminating in an uprising in Freiburg in 1848/49.  The Benitz from Endingen were just a few of the many who during the mid-1800's emigrated to the Americas in search of a better life.

    The Benitz who left during the mid 19th century are known to have settled in Argentina, Mexico, U.S.A., and Venezuela.   In the US descendants of the Benitz settlers in the Pennsylvania Dutch colony have spread westward.  In Mexico they settled in Alta California in what is today California and Nevada in the US.   In Venezuela they were leaders and founding members of the Colonia Tovar  - where the family surname no longer exists.  In Argentina (emigrated by way of California) they became prosperous land owners with descendants spread about the globe.

   Wilhelm left to become a seaman in 1830-1831;  his future in-laws, also from Endingen, emigrated in 1833 (to North Carolina).  Then in 1838 his brother Anton emigrated to Pennsylvania - about the same time so did Anna and Franz (to Ohio).  Times were tough for those who remained in Endingen.  Thaddeus, who continued in the family trade, was not doing well during the 1860's and Wilhelm sent him money from California .

    In 1842 Alexander, a second cousin to Wilhelm, led a group of nearly 400 emigrés from Endingen and the surrounding villages to found the Colonia Tovar in Venezuela.   Alexander was accompanied by two brothers (Karl and Theodor) and two sisters (Karolina and Lugarda), other relatives followed later.  In the 1850's and 1860's his brothers Louis and Adolphus were miners in the California Gold Rush.

    Today there are Benitz's living in the Freiburg-im-Breisgau area, but in Endingen itself there remain no persons with that family name.  None are listed on the village's memorial to its dead in WW-I and WW-II.   There is a Benitz Strasse named after Alexander and his portrait hangs in the village's museum to the emigrants to Colonia Tovar.

    For more information on the ancient ancestors, in the main index on the left, click on Ancestors... or the name of particular individual.

    During the 1870's and 1880's several persons with the surname of Benitz emigrated to the Americas from villages and towns of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) and the area surrounding Freiburg-im-Breisgau in the Grand Duchy of Baden.  At this time we have not investigated to what extent they may be related to the Benitz from Endingen, but being close by suggests a blood relationship may exist.  [We plan adding a list of their names, including close variants - e.g. Bönitz.]

    To dispel any notion that the Benitz surname is unique to Endingen, we have been reliably informed of several Benitz living today in villages east of Freiburg.   To protect their privacy we will not list them here, however, we include below a list compiled by Jürgen Sterks of Benitz who were born, married, or died in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) area during the 1600's and 1700's.  For more details (in German) you can visit Jürgen's website.  He lists two early Benitz who emigrated to the US:

Under Date, the abbreviations are:

    Heinrich Benitz (1824-1900) emigrated to the US during the early 1870's from the Pomeranian village of  Zemmin in the Kingdom of Prussia.  Today it lies within the Länder (state) of  Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (see maps above).  He settled in Wathena, Kansas, where his descendants have prospered and are leaders in their communities, mostly in Kansas and Washington states.   It is probably more than just a coincidence that a few kilometers to the north of Zemmin is a village with the very similar name of Bentzin ("Bentz" with the German female "in" suffix?).

    For more information, please see Heinrich.