The Search For My Uncommon Last Name, Part I

If you grew up with an uncommon, oddly spelled or hard to pronounce last name, you're in good company.  With a name like "Tscherne" you can probably imagine all the ways people have attempted to pronounce it and all the incorrect spellings people came up with. My siblings and I would typically have to have pity on the poor person trying to figure out how to make sounds consistent with a last name with 6 consonants and 2 vowels, one of those vowels only finally coming into the mix after 4 consonants.  I can't tell you how many times we all went through hearing things like "Next up is (first name) T...Tch...Tich....Ch....Sh...Tuh...Tech..." and us finally just standing up so the person could catch a break from having to settle on some collection of sounds that never resembled how we actually pronounced it (which is "Tish-ern").

I was always curious about our name and where our ancestors came from. The only people I'd ever heard of with our name were my parents, siblings, and grandparents. When I was around 10-11 years old I learned that my Dad had a brother (yay, more Tschernes in the world!) who lives abroad, and his wife and 2 daughters brought our Tscherne Club membership up to a whopping 11 people.

In 1993 my teacher assigned a "family tree" project.  I was so excited! That is, until my grandmother put up a roadblock when I asked her about her family and my Grandpa's family. "The past should stay in the past. Skeletons should stay in the closets." In trying to get me to stop asking questions, she further fanned the flames of my desire to find out all that I could. Someday, I would crack open those closet doors and learn all about the skeletons she mentioned! I'm sorry to let you down, but while I have learned a lot more on my own, I never did find out any family secrets worth staying quiet about. My grandfather had passed away that year, so I couldn't ask him, obviously. The dead end was frustrating, but a lot of things are frustrating when you're 12-13 years old, so I didn't dwell on it for too long.  I never forgot, or stopped wanting to know more, but at that age there were more pressing dramas in life to be angsty over.

My Mom's side of the family was easy - big ol' Irish Catholic family from Philadelphia. The problem wasn't in getting the names of people from that side, it was trying to fit them all in. Also, the abundance of them made the dearth of members on my Dad's side of the tree made my family tree look like it severely needed some fertilizer or magic or something.  I had neither, but I did have perseverance and curiosity.

Right about that time, my Dad received a book from his brother. It was from some company that searches for and provides you information about your last name, and it even had mailing addresses for all the other Tschernes in the world.

Yes, that's right, I learned that there were more than 11 of us!

I wrote out letters in my best Catholic-school penmanship (which wasn't very good, actually, as I'm left handed) and mailed letters out to around 20 Tschernes.  I told them who I was, where I lived, and my family's phone number. I said that I was working on a project for school, and if they had any information on our last name or if they knew how they might be related to me to please get in touch. I received maybe 1-2 letters telling me "Good luck with your project, but I got nothing." One night a woman called our house all the way from Ohio (!!! At that time, it was long distance for my parents to even call someone who lived 10-15 miles away).  I not only learned from her that there are LOTS of Tschernes in Ohio, but they pronounce the name totally differently!  Instead of "Tish-ern," they say "Shern-e" or "Churn-e!"  Apparently, I learned, there are 3 main areas in the US that have people with our name: Chicago, Illinois; around Toledo, OH, and in New York in Brooklyn and Queens boroughs.  (I knew about the New York connection, as I knew my Dad and his parents had been born there and they had the accents to prove it!) Unfortunately, the nice "Shern-e" woman on the phone couldn't think of how exactly we would be related, but we settled on what had to be a fact: With a name like Tscherne, we were sure we were related in someway, in the older generations.

(Up next, Part 2!)