Achievements & Whereabouts

Schosers have conquered the world. But where exactly are they? Where have they come from? Where are they going? Schosers have also been at the forefront of many revolutionary discoveries and achievements. Whether in sports, science, business, arts or nonsense, Schosers have the potential to excel. See this unique collection of evidence of Schosers' whereabouts and achievements!

Whereabouts

  • Whereabouts in Germany
In Germany, the last name Schoser is registered in phone books 36 times. Based on the average household size, this would mean that 96 Schoser live in Germany today. Almost all of them live in South-West Germany. A more detailed breakdown reveals that only 26 phone book entries relate private households, the remainder to businesses. Most entries are registered in the town of Burladingen (nine), followed by Trochtelfingen with six entries and Köln/Cologne with three entries. (see Telefonbuch)

  • US immigration
Did you know that most Schosers immigrated to the US in 1881? In that year, two Schosers were recorded in the New York passenger lists. However, it seems that isn't the full truth. The Ellis Island Port of New York records indicate that also in the years 1894 (Elisabeth and Sebastian) and 1902 (Cristine and Marie) two Schosers each arrived in the US.
In any event, it is probably fair to say that there wasn't really a mass movement...


  • How Tyrolian Schösers turned into American Schosers
The Ellis Island Passenger Lists record seven different persons with the name Schoser having arrived in the US between 1894 and 1911: Cristine, Elisabeth, Georg, Johann, Kreszenz, Marie and Sebastian. All of them used to live in Austria before coming to the US, in the case of two the last place of residence is specified as Zell-Ziller in Tyrol. Interestingly, today no Schosers live in Austria.

However, the name Schöser is quite common in Western Austria, in particular in Zell im Zillertal !! In the Schwaz area to which Zell belongs 57 phonebook entries are registered under the name Schöser (Geogen maps). You do not need to be a genius to deduct that some of today's Schosers in the US had Austrian ancestors called Schöser who lost the two dots on the "o" when they immigrated to the US and adapted to the English-speaking world.

  • Tale of a Transylvanian Schoser
Transylvania is a region in central Romania which since Bram Stoker’s novel of 1897 is often associated with the vampire Count Dracula. Transylvania has also been home to some Schosers. Johann Schoser who on 11 February 1905 at the age of 29 emigrated to the United States was one of them according to the Ellis Island Records. He was a ‘Transylvanian Saxon’ as the ethnic Germans were known in this region which at the time of his emigration was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At his arrival in the US, his ‘last place of residence’ was noted as Arbegen, a small town situated in the centre of Transylvania. Until World War II, about as many ethnic Germans as Romanians lived in Arbegen (in Romanian Agârbiciu), about 620 each (http://www.sibiweb.de/orte/arbegen/). A history of Arbegen confirms that over centuries people emigrated from Arbegen. As in Johann’s case, most of them emigrated to the United States.

  • Names change
We tend to think of family names as set in stone. However, this is not necessarily so. As noted previously, emigration from Austria to the US seems to have changed 'Schöser' into 'Schoser'. But even staying in one place does not guarantee that a family name remains the same.
The GeneaNet database reveals cases in which the family name 'Schösser' lost one 's' and changed into 'Schöser'. This change occurred from one generation to another without any indication of why it happened. Simon Schösser, son of Johann Schösser lived in Hippach, Tyrol, Austria all his life from 1845 until 1912. Between 1878 and 1898, he and his wife Maria had eleven children all of whom received the new family name 'Schöser'. The same occurred to Simon's cousin Johann Schösser of Hippach whose six children were born between 1877 and 1887 and who also received the new family name 'Schöser'.
Did the local registrar decide that two 's' were one too many, was he dyslexic, did the emperor issue a decree simplifying name spelling? In any event, future generations of this family lived on as 'Schöser' while the name 'Schösser' also still exists. The latter is in fact (still) more common than the former (78 phone book entries compared to 57) while the geographical overlap is striking.


  • France - home to Schosers?
The French website Genealogie indicates for France for the period from 1966 until 1990 one birth for the name ‘Schoser’. In the previous periods recorded, births among ‘Schosers’ were a bit more common in France: four for the period 1941-1965, three for the period 1916-1940 and four for the period 1891-1915. All of these births except one were recorded in the ‘département’ Moselle in the originally German-speaking part of Lorraine.
Today, the French telephone directory lists in this ‘département’ only Patrice Schoser. However, it turns out that Patrice is in fact called 'Schöser' – French orthography obliging.  
Like in the US, there is an indication that in France, the few existing ‘Schosers’ are often, if not always ‘Schösers’ who have temporarily or permanently lost their two dots on the ‘o’. This seems to be confirmed by the frequency of the name ‘Schoeser’ in France and in particular in the ‘département’ Moselle: In the four periods, between 38 and 55 births were recorded for ‘Schoeser’ in France of which each time about three quarters in Moselle. In terms of pronunciation, Schöser and Schoeser are identical twins and may in fact have the same origin, whatever this may be...
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