Dunker Name Study

Profile managers: One Name Studies WikiTree [send private message] and Amanda Dunker [send private message]

How to Join

Please contact the project leader Amanda D. or post a comment at the foot of the page. If you have any questions, just ask. Thanks!

Goals

This is a One Name Study to collect together in one place everything about one surname and the variants of that name. The hope is that other researchers like you will join our study to help make it a valuable reference point for people studying lines that cross or intersect. I would like to use this study primarily to learn more about the Dunkers who came to the United States in the mid-19th century and more about the Dunkers in Germany. The name also shows up in the Netherlands, I'm happy to include those Dunkers here.

For now I haven't included variants like Duncker but am open to suggestions. "Dunker" is frequently misspelled so I don't think in most cases "Duncker" and "Donker" are true variants.

19th Century German Immigrants

So far I've added five groups:

1. Christ Dunker is the earliest in my tree, the head of a family that ended up in Wilson, Niagara County, New York. The 1870 Census says he was born in Mecklenberg. These are my relatives.

2. Carsten Dunker's family landed in Maryland and then moved on to Minnesota. The 1870 Census says they were from Hanover.

3. Julius Heinrich Conrad Dunker and his wife Fredericka Sophia Gross Dunker ended up in Nebraska. An unsourced family tree says they were born in Schlewig Holstein Hasum.

4.Casper Dunker was born in Hanover in 1833 (according to the US Census) and ended up in Perry, Missouri.

5. Henry Dunker was also born in Hanover according to the US Census, around 1843, and ended up in Perry, Missouri.

Brethren Connections: 18th Century German Immigrants

The earliest Dunker I know about is Catherine Dunker Royer - however I don't believe she is truly a Dunker. Instead, she was a member of the Dunker church, formally called the Brethren and perhaps at some point people started putting that down mistakenly as her family name. I do not know if there is a connection between Dunker as a surname and the Dunker church. If anyone is interested it would be fun to see if there are other people who were part of that earlier migration from Germany (during the 18th century) who ended up with the surname Dunker in later family trees.

Task List

- Add German records for the Christ Dunker family: confirm and narrow down birth location for Christ, Sophia, William, and Lewis; emigration records.

- Add German records for the Carsten Dunker family: confirm and narrow down birth locations and locate emigration records.

-Added German records for the Julius H.C. Dunker family: confirm and narrow down birth locations and locate emigration records.

-Find more Dunker family groups that left Germany in the 19th century.