STARTING THE QUANDT JOURNEY

Surnames were initially for the purpose of more specific identification.  There are usually four chief sources for these surnames: father's name, occupation, location and personality traits.  The name QUANDT appears to have it's origin from personality traits meaning: "a well-meaning man who often does a great deal of mischief without any kind of malice."  The QUANDT ancestry comes mainly from the Kingdom of Pomerania which today is northern Poland.  Prussia (Germany) has a unique history. There were two dominant families in the Holy Roman Empire in what is Europe today.  They were the Hohenzollerns and the Brandenburg families.  The Hohenzollerns ruled from the castle on the hill of Zollern which was located just north of what is now Switzerland.  The Brandenburgs had their central holdings in the city of Berlin and surrounding areas of northern Europe.  This frontier province was the northern and eastern outpost of the German culture and language.  In the 1500's saw the acceptance of Lutheranism by the Brandenburgs.  This became the chief state of Protestantism in Germany and Hohenzollerns in the present day Austria was the acknowledged leader of the Catholic states.

A Germanic tribe called the Goth's were established in Pomerania during the time of Christ.  There were other Teutonic (German) tribes living in the area.  It was during the 5th and 6th centuries that the Slavic clans of Kasubic and Pomerani ventured westward to less populated areas on the shores of the Baltic Sea.  The name of this area became known as Pomerania from the Pomerani word "ponorze" - land by the sea.

In 1811, agents from Pomerania were sent to Germany to arrange protection from the Danes and other groups that were besieging them on all sides.  Under this German protection it allowed Germany to send many settlers into the sparely settled Pomerania.  Thousands of Germans poured into Pomerania.  The Pomeranians welcomed the immigration because the Germans had the iron plow and many other tools that they did not have.  They were able to increase the supply of food.  Their crafts expanded and commerce was on the increase.

The Pomeranian rulers did not know when they made that agreement in 1811, that something unforeseen was happening.  The Germans built their own villages along side the Pomeranian villages.  Soon there was a mixture of nationalities.  The German culture and language soon controlled the whole country and within 200 years the Pomeranian language disappeared in the 1700's.

In 1817 Pomerania had established the Lutheran Church as the state church.  King Friedrick Wilhelm III combined the Lutheran and Calvinist churches together in 1837.  This did not set well with the old Lutherans and so started in the immigration to America and other countries.  This  happened between 1837 and 1843.  This peaked in 1880 with many Lutheran Pomeranians going to the United States and settling in the Midwest area.  Thus, in 1880, PAUL FRANK ERNST QUANDT came to America with his grandmother (HENRIETTE PIR RADDE) and some of her family.