The Surname of Swartzentrover

Swartzentrover - Swartzentruber - Swiss - German

Variant of Swiss German Schwarzentruber, Schwartzentrauber, an occupational name for a grower of black wine grapes, from Middle High German swarz ‘black’ + trube ‘grape’, or from the name of a house or tavern with a sign a dark grapes.*

Swartzendruber (Swartzentruber, Swartzendrover Swartzendruver, Schwartzentruber, Schwartzendruber, Schwarzentruber, Schwarzentruver, Schwarztrauber, Schwarzentraub)

A Mennonite family name, Swartzendruber is Swiss in origin and may mean "seller of black grapes." In the early 1700s a family Bible used the spelling Schwarzentraub. This is one of the earliest known occurrences of the name. The Schwartzendrubers originally belonged to the Amish branch of the Mennonites. Among the Swiss Brethren leaving Switzerland for the Netherlands in 1711 there was a Hans Schwartzentrub, of Trub(?), who, however, left the ship at Mannheim. A Christian Schwartztrauben is mentioned in the Dutch Naamlijst of 1767-1802 as a preacher at the Weissemheim am Berg congregation (Amish) in the duchy of Leiningen, Germany. Bäntz Schwarztrauben was a preacher of the Amish church of Waldeck starting in 1775.

According to a family tradition the first American Swartzendrubers were immigrants from Waldeck*. The first-known immigrations occurred soon after 1800, when settlements were made in Ontario and Pennsylvania near Somerset and Berlin. Soon, however, migrations to points farther west resulted in comparatively few residents remaining in Pennsylvania. The name has been most prominent in Ontario, Maryland, Delaware, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa. Prominent Mennonite personalities who bore this name include Jacob J. Schwartzendruber of Waldeck (Germany), Pennsylvania, and Iowa; Jacob Frederick and Joseph Schwartzendruber of Iowa; and Solomon Swartzendruber of Michigan.

Partly taken from:
Dictionary of American Family Names,
Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

* To learn more about the Principality of Weldeck go here