Posted on Facebook on 10 December 2016.

Not every bearer of the name Weis(s)enborn is as happy with his family name as I am. Three members of the Weissenborn family from Hannover have let go of their name, in two cases willfully, in the third case by the decision of the mother. Let me tell the stories.

The current forefather of the Weissenborns from Hannover is Johann Conrad (1745-1823) who married Catharina Elisabeth Decken in Hannover on 19 May 1777. The House of Hanover has occupied the British throne from 1714 until 1901 and the industry in London, England was booming in 1850. This must have made two of Johann Conrad's grandsons and a great-grandson emigrate to London in 1851 and 1878, respectively.

The great-grandson was August Weissenborn, a coach painter (1850-1921). The anti-German sentiments in England at the onset of the First World War made him and his family change their name from Weissenborn to White.

Grandson Conrad Ludwig Friedrich (1818-1910), who called himself Carl Louis in England, has among his offspring a great-granddaughter Una Meryl Weissenborn (1930-2008). At the age of 18 Una Meryl changed her family name to Williams. The announcement of this change in the London Gazette can be found on the internet. Una Meryl's mother was Doris Elisabeth Weissenborn. The change may simply be evidence that Una Meryl prefered to carry the family name of her biological father.

Hannover-born great-grandson Carl Hermann Heinrich (1863-1937) had lost both parents at age 14. He had 3 children by his first wife in Hannover. He emigrated to the United States in 1905 and his son August Friedrich Hermann (1892-1926) soon followed. Father and son set up a guitar factory, in which they produced very fine guitars that today fetch prices of £ 5000 to 10,000 . There are no descendants of this rather famous Hermann Weissenborn bearing the name Weissenborn.

But ... son August's wife Ida Tropietz bore him a son Hermann, born in Los Angeles on 8 April 1922. A month after August's death in 1926 Ida married Fred Royal Meadows and renamed her son Hank Meadows. Hank became famous like his grandfather Hermann Weissenborn, but ... as TV chef. Just key in his name on Google to see how well-known he was.