About the Riedesels/ Rietesels from Pomerania First of all, the pronunciation of those two variants of our name is very similar in German. In fact, the “T” sound is what you actually hear among our cousins in Germany. That’s because a final “D” is pronounced like “T.” Our name is a compound word. “Esel” of course means donkey.”Ried” almost certainly derives from the verb “to ride.” Thus it will sound like “reet” to American ears.

While just about all the American Riedesels trace back to Henrich who was born around 1600 in Wittgenstein, I found a handful who came from what is now northeastern Germany around the Baltic city of Stralsund. That area is part of the historical region called Pomerania. The population was Germanic, but it belonged variously to Sweden as well as Brandenburg Prussia. It was part of East Germany and is now in the state of “Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.”

Ancestral information on the emigrants to America is scarce. Some records exist, but they are nowhere near as complete (or at least as digitized) as those in Wittgenstein. I think it was a hard-scrabble place. Those who came to America were not in a position to acquire farmland, and would not have had that kind of background anyway. Many ended up in the greater Chicago area.

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I have identified the following as originating in western Pomerania:

Johananes Rietesel ‘1849
Auguste Rietesel ‘1878
Robert Rietesel ‘1880
Eduard Rietesel ‘1877
Joachim Carl Friedrich Rietesel ‘1877
Christian J. Rietesel ‘1856
Charles Riedesel ‘1819
Johannes Riedesel ‘1844
Friedrika Riedesel ‘1859
Theodore Rietesel ‘1863
Friedrich Riedesel ‘1816
Johanna Friederike Riedesel ‘1835
Marie Caroline Riedesel ‘1841
Sofia F. Riedesel ‘1849
Carl Johann Wilhelm Riedesel ‘1852
Mary Riedesel ‘1857

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