Petroll Family

PETROLL FAMILY NAME

 The Petroll name is not common.  According to one source there are currently only 303 people with the name Petroll living in Germany, 64 in Brazil, 57 in the United states and 17 in Poland.  There appear to be a number of smaller countries, in particular, the slavic countries, not included at all. Still, according to ancestry website, only a handful of Petrolls immigrated to the US in the 19th century, all from Prussia or Germany.

I was unable to find the source of the Petroll name, but the spellings of surnames were not rigid up until the 18th and 19th centuries.  Records show that many people used multiple spellings of their names throughout their own lives and we know many immigrants' names were changed both intentionally and unintentionally.  There are a number of similar surnames including Petrolli, Petrolla, Petrolo etc.  The majority of people with related surnames live in Italy.

Ancestors of Anna Carolina Petroll Syska (my 2nd gr grandmother)

On September 26, 1830,  Johann Christian Petroll (1802-1855)  married Anna Dorothea Gumpert (1811-1853) in  Adelnau, Posen, Prussia.  According to the marriage record, he was 28 years old and his bride was 18. 





Christian and Dorothea had 5 children, 2 of whom died in childhood.  The children were Carl (b.1831), Carolina (1834-1895), Susane (1837-1841), Christian (1839-1839) and August (b. 1846).  



Dorothea died March 9, 1853 and Christian died Nov. 22, 1855 both in Posen, Prussia.  Their 2nd daughter, Carolina married Adolph Syska and emmigrated to the United States in 1885. 

Province of Posznan was part of 

 Poland until 1793 when it was annexed

 in the Kingdom of Prussia.
In 1871 Poznan was made part of  Germany 

and  in 1918 it was  finally returned to Poland .

Christian Petroll was born on June 8th, 1802 as the 5th child of George Friedrich Petroll (1761-1813) and Christine Rauhut Petroll (1765-1831). George Friedrich Petroll and Christine Rauhut were married in 1785 in Schwarzwald, Posen, POLAND.  

Although the family continued to live in the same region, their nationality was a moving target.  The Province of Posen/Poznan shifted from Poland to Prussia to Germany and back again to Poland between 1793 to 1918.  Today it remains part of Poland. 

George and Christine had 9 children from 1786 to 1808 including: Anna Marie (b.1786), Johann Gottlieb (1793-1835), George Friedrich (1794-1850), Johann Gottfried (1797-1855), Anna Christina (1799-1867), Johann Christian (1802-1855), Johann Carl Mathias (1804-1832), Christoph (1806-1816) and Johann Mathias (1808-1808). 

George died in 1813 when he was 55 years old while Christine Rauhut Petroll passed away in 1831 at 66 years old.  


As of now, that's as far as I can trace the Petroll line.  I will be sharing information about the ancestry of Dorothea Gumpert in my next blog entry. 

** Special thanks to Barbara Moon for sharing all these wonderful records and photos**