Tag Archives: Johannes (John) Yagerlehner

Tombstone Tuesday – David Yegerlehner

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Image courtesy of

Image courtesy of Tonya & Keith Tetidrick

David Yegerlehner (originally Jegerlehner) was the immigrant ancestor of Roscoe’s family in America. David arrived with his wife, Magdalena, and three children, Christian, John and Rosina, in 1851. They were natives of Bern, Switzerland. While each of the three children settled in different areas of Indiana, David stayed with his eldest son Christian. When Christian bought land in Clay County, Indiana, David set up his carpet weaving shop across the road from the farm house.

David’s grandchildren erected this modern stone at the cemetery in his honor.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=38084666

©2013 copyright owned and written by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found at: https://genealogylady.net/2013/11/04/tombstone-tues…id-yegerlehner/

Sunday’s Obituary – Floyd V. Yegerlehner

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One of the people mentioned frequently in my grandparents’ letters is Floyd. Floyd was my grandfather’s youngest brother. Floyd was the outlier in the family.  All of his siblings were born relatively close together between the years 1897-1904. Floyd’s older siblings were born fairly regularly, 2-3 years apart.  My grandfather was born in 1904, and then, Floyd wasn’t born until 1911, almost 7 years later. My great grandmother Lovina was 35 when Floyd was born.  By modern measure, 35 isn’t that old. I had my youngest child when I was 38. I don’t know if there were any other pregnancies or miscarriages between the birth of my grandfather and my great uncle.  There is no left who remembers as their generation is gone.

I’m sure at some point I met my Great Uncle Floyd when I was little but I don’t remember.  When I first started with my genealogy obsession, I contacted Floyd.  He was the one who was actively searching the family’s genealogy.  We exchanged several letters in the mid to late 1990s. He passed on some great information he had gathered on some of the other branches of the family.  He gave me information on the Schwartz side of the family. My great, great grandfather Christian Yegerlehner married another Swiss ex-patriot named Elizabeth Schwartz. Floyd also passed on information on the descendants of John Yegerlehner and Rosina (Yegerlehner) McCormick, siblings of Christian. He also helped me to identify people in several photographs.

One thing that Floyd had searched for years to locate was the ship manifest.  We knew that the Yegerlehners had arrived in America around 1851. But Floyd was limited in his access to records.  He had to search the old fashioned way.  He had to travel to libraries and archives, hoping to find the right depository.  It wasn’t until after he died that Ancestry added digital images from ship’s manifests.  I did finally locate the manifest which had eluded Floyd for so long.  I wish he had been around for that discovery.

Letter transcription:

Tue 1715

Dear Mother-

I missed a letter today but I think it’s due to the change in address, etc. I got your letter with the letter about Carl Koon in it last night after I had written you. I’ll send it back and you can call him and have him take it to whomever he wants.

Since we are located where we are it isn’t so necessary that one has a car – it is only 2 blocks to the car line. I’m

I’m wondering if you might plan on coming down in a week or ten days. Maybe Ruth & Floyd would come over and get the kids or you & Dorothy or Lucille might take them over. We are pretty uncertain as to how long we might be here. Some have been here 10-12 weeks and some only 2-3. We could talk over the living down

(page 2) here business much better if you were here. You should plan on staying about one week at least so that almost let makes it out of the question for anyone to drive you down. They probably wouldn’t want to stay that long. Week-end is the best time since I have Sun. off. Only ever so often we have to be on duty Sun. I’ll find out. I know next Sun. is free but I don’t know about one week from Sun. yet.

You be thinking this thing over and let me know what you decide. I think the train would be better and of course a Pullman. I wish we had inquired as to the amount a Pullman cars.

Well, the above is food for thought

Love Daddy

©2012, copyrighted & written by Deborah Sweeney

Surname Saturday – Yegerlehner

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Yegerlehner is a rather rare surname.  You can generally bet that anyone in the United States with the surname Yegerlehner is related to me. Yegerlehner is Swiss in origin, and in fact, is correctly spelled Jegerlehner. When my ancestor David Jegerlehner arrived in America in 1851 with his wife and 3 children, they changed the spelling to reflect how the name should be pronounced.  In the Germanic languages, the letter J is pronounced as an English Y. The second letter e in the name is also pronounced ā (long a).  So the Je (in Jegerlehner) is pronounced Yay.

My grandmother always told me that the name Jegerlehner meant “hunter of the hills”.  I always thought this was rather romantic considering there are some rather impressive hills in Switzerland that I would like to see some day. Jeger, the first part of the surname, is the German word for hunter.  So that part of the translation seems to be correct.  I haven’t really been able to come up with a satisfactory translation for lehner though.  Lehner appears to be “a status name for a feudal tenant or vassal, from an agent derivative of Middle High German lēhen ‘to hold land as a feudal tenant’.  (http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/surname-origin/lehner)

David Jegerlehner had two sons, Christian and Johannes (John). After first settling in a Swiss populated area of Berlin Township, Holmes County, Ohio for a few years, the family decided to move further west. Christian and his father moved to Owen County, Indiana for a few years and then permanently settled in neighboring Clay County.  The other son John moved his family to northeastern Indiana around Ft. Wayne. The descendants of Christian traditionally spelled their name Yegerlehner.  John’s descendants wrote the name Yagerlehner. Over the next few generations members of the family continued to alter the spelling of the name, mainly in an effort to aid pronunciation. I have seen variants as: Yager-Lehner, Yagerline, Yegerline, Yegerlener.  John Henry Yegerlehner, the son of Christian and grandson of David, continued to spell the name Yegerlehner.   John Henry is the only son of Christian’s that continued a male line into the 21st century. So that is why if you find someone with the name Yegerlehner today, they are most likely related to me.

If you would like to learn more about the surname Jegerlehner, one of my distant Swiss cousins maintains this website: http://www.jegerlehner.ch/world/

Letter translation:

Mon Eve 1800

1026 Magnolia Ave

Dear Mother-

We are now in our new home and I think we are very lucky to get such a nice place for 5.00. We have twin beds and plenty of drawer space but the bath is upstairs. Ou

Our working hours have been changed from 4:00 to 4:30 but we still have to be there at 8:30 three mornings per week and 7:30 the other three.

I think in a week or so you should come down and stay a week. We can get rooms at the Chamberland Hotel for $2.50 per day but of course we would have to ride the street car unless you could bring the car but we can see about that in a few days.

We had our first air raid warning today – just practice. Everyone had to stand by for 30 min. The station Unit X had to be prepared – all windows closed lights & water shut off. It was day time. The

(page 2) warning is a weird sort of a noise – sounds like a big Jackass but at least every one can hear it. There hasn’t been any night block out since I’ve been here. I don’t know how much of this stuff I’m supposed to write or not write but I did anyway.

The two letters I got Sat. were the only ones I have received so far but the others will be forwarded when they get here. I don’t believe I’d ever get a letter thru the naval station. From the

Hope the collections are still coming in as we will need them. I’m not sure yet how the finances are coming out. The income tax probably will be the hardest to meet but next year it won’t be so much.

Well, I’ll try to do better tomorrow-

Love Daddy

©2012, copyrighted & written by Deborah Sweeney