Ever wanted to know where the name Schwabedissen comes from? Well, the Schwabedissen family album contains a short discourse on it, but since it is in German I tried to translate this paragraph to English:
"Svevedeshusun" or "Schwabedissen", which was listed as one of the properties belonging to the officium Selingwoerden1 in 1333, took its own development soon. It must have been a very old settlement, since according to Jellinghaus2 places ending with 'husun' belong to the eldest Germanic settlements of this region (around 1000 bc). 'husun' (= 'house' in East and South Westphalia) was the description for a residence consisting of several farms or a main farm with several branched off adjoining farms. Therefore Svevedeshusun could possibly mean "house or farms of Svevo3".
1) officium Selingwoerden
: (latin) the office of Selingwoerden
2) Jellinghaus : Author of a book about names of places in Westphalia
3) Svevo : probably the name of a Germanic prince
So the name Schwabedissen originally was the name of a settlement in Westphalia. Our ancestors received a large farm near this settlement as a leasehold farm from the abbey of Herford and were then called the "Meyer zu Schwabedissen" ("the leasehold farmer from Schwabedissen"). There are still people in Germany with the name "Meyer zu Schwabedissen", however most sons who left the farm dropped the "Meyer zu" and called themselves Schwabedissen only. So did my ancestor Martin Henrich Schwabedissen (* 1687 on the Schwaghof, + May 16, 1772 in Boesingfeld, Lippe, Westphalia, Germany), who left the farm at the beginning of the 18th century.
Last modification:02/23/2001