Solved: The Thier-Disselbrede Mystery - Part 2

William Disselbrett's  mother's obituary referred to his surname as Tirze instead of Disselbrett, the Americanized name, or Disselbrede, his German surname.

While William's use of Disselbrede as his surname made this Thier thing a mystery, at least two of his sisters were just the opposite.  To the descendants of Frances Thiers Lichter and Gertrude Thiers Gerbracht, this Disselbrede thing was a mystery.

William's sister Francisca was born in 1833 and married Valentine Lichter in 1852.  On both occasions, the church records marking her baptism and marriage show her surname as Disselbrede.  Yet, when she died in 1914, the Chicago Tribune listed her surname as Thiers instead.

William's sister Gertrude was born in 1845.  Her marriage to Joseph Gerbracht was in 1863.  Her surname was Disselbrede in both documents.  When she died in 1916 in Illinois, though, the Thiers name emerged instead.  It lasted, even, to when her son Fred Gerbracht died in 1948.  The California death index listed his mother's maiden name as Thiers.

Indeed, even in 2013, the researchers for the Lichter and Gerbracht families puzzled why the name Disselbrede kept showing up interchangeably with the name Thier.

There was a time, though, when the family used the same surname and that was when they came to America in 1846.  Back then, it was Disselbrede, not Their, at least for all but one person.

That's Part Three and it starts to explain where the surname first appeared in this country.