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WHRITENOUR
Lets begin with the name WHRITENOUR, REITENHOWER, REITENAUER, WHRITEHOUR, and many other variations. The German meaning of our name seems to be something like this: A marsh of bog is often indicated by a rout meaning reeds or bullrushes, as in the case of riet and reth in Reyer and Rethmeyer. Low land, usually lying along a body of water, was an au, as in Reichenau on Lake Constance and also in the surnames Aumann and Aumueller. A man living on an au was an auer, an in REITENAUER. The name REITENAUER is the proper German spelling of our surname. The americanization of the REITENAUER name differs from branch to branch, sometimes from brother to brother. It seems that if your surname is spelled "WHRITENOUR" then you are definitely a descendant of the German immigrant HENRY OLIVER REITENAUER, who came to this country in the migration of 1764-5 and 1767, to work in the iron mines, furnances and forges of the London Co., under the directon of John Jacob Faesch. Most forms of our surname begin with the letter "R" except, one HENRY OLIVER'S branch. From what I have been told, it was an Orange County, New York census taker in 1800, who spelled the name as "WHRITEHOUR", after his own system of orthography. This is the first occurrence of the form of the name near to what it has remained today. |
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