The Schittner–Schitt Transition theory

By the closing years of the seventeenth century, surviving references to the Schittner family have become increasingly difficult to reconcile. Records associated with Barnard Schittner and his children preserve the family name with reasonable consistency, but later entries do not. Spelling challenges and handwriting have created some difficulty in deciphering the names.

Following Barnard’s death about 1696, references to several of his surviving children become scattered. Church fragments, trade accounts, and later family notations variously record forms resembling Schittner, Schittener, Schitten, Schitt, and, in at least one questionable transcription, simply S.

Whether these variations represent clerical abbreviation, changing pronunciation, deliberate simplification, or more than one related family has never been satisfactorily established.

Of particular interest are Barnard’s surviving children Magdalena, Konrad, Lina, and Lore. Each appears in portions of the surviving record, yet no single document presently establishes which—if any—provides the direct connection to the later American Schitt line.

Family tradition has long maintained that at least one branch of the Schittners departed the German-speaking communities in which the earlier records originated sometime around the turn of the eighteenth century. The destination, traveling companions, and even the precise year remain disputed. Later accounts place members of the family among German-speaking immigrants moving through Atlantic ports, but none has been conclusively matched to the Barnard Schittner household.

By the early decades of the 1700s, however, the shortened surname Schitt begins appearing in records associated with the later family.

Exactly when Schittner became Schitt remains UND.

The Archives therefore recognize the Schittner family as a probable ancestral line, while leaving the precise genealogical bridge under reconstruction.

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RELATED ARCHIVAL MATERIAL

Surviving Schittner Family Records →

Selected trade, parish, and family records associated with the period during which both Schittner and Schitt appear in surviving materials.