Yearke Family Information

My Connection

My father is Glenn Yearke; his father was Harvey Albert Yearke, his father was Albert Frank Yearke, and his father was Franz Gierke; My ancestor chart gives a pictorial view of how I'm related to them.

We've always presumed that, because the name is so unusual, all Yearkes are related. However, I've found a few that I cannot place in our family tree, so I am no longer sure of this. More on that later.

Origin of the Name "Yearke"

I believe that the name "Yearke" is a derivative spelling of "Gierke", and came into use in the late 1800's in Buffalo, New York. I discovered this after hitting a brick wall while researching marriage records in the basement of Erie County Hall. There came a point where I could not find any Yearkes before a certain date, so I started looking for spouses. The spouse of Margaret Carey was Charles Gierke, and once I started looking for people named "Gierke", I found a bunch of other records in a short amount of time. By backtracking using the name Gierke, I was also able to find his father, Franz Gierke, who at this time is the earliest member of this family whom I have been able to locate.

The earliest recorded use of the surname "Yearke" of which I am aware is in the 1883 Buffalo City Directory, where William Yearke is listed as living at 612 Broadway. However, he is one of the "other" Yearkes (more on that below); the earliest reference for an established relative is in the 1884 Buffalo City Directory, where the aforementioned Charles Yearke, the eldest son of Franz Gierke, is listed under this name. All of his siblings appear to have made a similar name change in 1887, after the death of their father the year before. I have no idea why they did this, and this is a mystery that will probably remain unsolved, although it might be as simple as the fact that the Old German "G" looks a lot like a cursive "Y" and the handwritten letters "i", "e", and "a" can often blur together and be misinterpreted. So, the handwritten "Gie" may have appeared to be "Yea" to someone, for example a typist for the city directory, and once it appeared in print that way, they decided to standardize on this spelling.

Pre-Buffalo Yearke History

Franz Gierke was born in Prussia, possibly in areas named "Studroer" or "Loebnick", 1841. He appears to have emigrated to Western New York around 1860.

His wife, Wilhelmina "Minnie" Zimmerman, was also born in Prussia, possibly in areas named "Loebnick" or "Mamegen", in 1840. She appears to have emigrated to Western New York around 1859-1860, according to various sources.

History of the Yearke Family in Buffalo

I am still searching the 1860 and 1870 Federal Census records for the Gierke family. As explained on this page, I have reason to believe they lived in the Prussian community of Wolcottsville, in the Niagara County town of Royalton, during those census years. In 1880, they lived in the Town of Wheatfield in Niagara County. By the turn of the century, most of the family was living in the City of Buffalo, mostly on the East Side, except for Louisa, who was living in Lockport with her husband, and Minnie, Franz' wife, who was remarried and also living in Lockport.

The "Other" Yearkes

Earlier, I mentioned that we've subscribed to a truism that all Yearkes are related. I have found several people with that name who all fit into a nice little tree, yet do not connect to our tree as far as I have been able to determine. Here is a rough diagram of this tree:

                                             +---------------------------+
                                             |      William Yearke       |
                                             |    ABT 1830 - UNKNOWN     |
                                             |        m. ABT 1860        |
                                             |       Louisa Davis        |
                                             |  __ Aug 1829 - AFT 1900   |
                                             +-------------+-------------+
                                                           |
              +-----------------------------+--------------+--------------+-----------------------------+
              |                             |                             |                             |
+-------------+-------------+ +-------------+-------------+ +-------------+-------------+ +-------------+-------------+ 
|      Augusta Yearke       | |       August Yearke       | |       Frank Yearke        | |        Anna Yearke        | 
|   __ Oct 1860 - UNKNOWN   | |   __ Aug 1864 - UNKNOWN   | |    ABT 1865 - UNKNOWN     | |    ABT 1867 - UNKNOWN     | 
|                           | |      m. 15 Aug 1891       | |                           | |                           | 
|                           | |      Anna Baumgaertel     | |                           | |                           | 
|                           | |   __ Oct 1867 - UNKNOWN   | |                           | |                           | 
+---------------------------+ +-------------+-------------+ +---------------------------+ +---------------------------+ 
                                            |
                             +--------------+--------------+
                             |                             |
               +-------------+-------------+ +-------------+-------------+
               |       Amelia Yearke       | |      Clarence Yearke      |
               |   __ Oct 1888 - UNKNOWN   | |   14 Jun 1898 - UNKNOWN   |
               |       m. 03 May 1916      | |      m. 28 Feb 1931       |
               |      Ernest R Fordyce     | |      Elsie Schwandt       |
               |      ABT 1881 - UNKNOWN   | |      b. 07 May 1907       |
               +---------------------------+ +---------------------------+

The only theory I have, aside from it might be just coincidence that this family decided to spell their name the same way, is this: Could William have been a brother or cousin of Franz Gierke, and emigrated from Germany to follow him? The ages would be about right, they also appear to have originally spelled their last name "Gierke" or "Gerke", and a naturalization card for August Yearke states that he came to the U.S. around 1868, and was naturalized in 1887. This certainly warrants further investigation.

Trivia

St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Johnson City, NY was built by Rev. Melvin E. Yearke.

Web Searches

This page contains an index showing that Franz Gierke is buried in Concordia Cemetery.

This page indicates that a Yearke family lived on Broadway and on Urban in Buffalo in 1890.

Nunda Lake Wedding Announcements showing the marriage of Walter Yearke and Rosa Behnke (relationship unknown).

There is an Emma Yearke, age 1 year, in the list of Cuyahoga County Deaths 1867 - 1890.

Jean L. Weitzel (Yearke) is listed in Shamokin High School Graduates --- 1934-1983

C.A. Yearke is listed as a trainman on page 44 of Erie Railroad Magazine, June 1929 (PDF format).

Gierke Family Genealogy Forum

Ancestry.com Gierke Message Board [subscription]

A Plea for More Information

If anyone has any additional information on the Yearke or Gierke families, or if my speculations and hypotheses are flawed, I'd appreciate it if you'd send me e-mail. Thanks in advance!

Information From Official Records

Erie County Hall Marriage Records for Franz Gierke's Children

Notes on the above:

• Charles Gierke's marriage license application states that they were married at 548 Swan St. by Pastor G. Bernes, and the witnesses were Frank Gierke and Minnie Gierke.
• On Kate Yearke's application, I probably misread "14" as "19", as every other source says she was born in 1875; for example, the 1900 Federal Census states she was 24 years old and had been married for 10 years.

Buffalo City Directory Listings

On my lunch hours, I have been browsing the microfilmed and microfiched copies of the Buffalo City Directories, which are available at the Lockwood Library, at UB, about two minutes' walk from my office in Bell Hall. Shown below are the results of my findings for the Yearke family.

The last recorded use of the last name "Gierke" was in 1886, and the last year I searched for this name was 1899, as it had clearly fallen out of usage in our family by this time. Also, I included variants of "Yearke" only in cases where they seemed relevant, and did not search for every occurance of "Yerke", "Yeirke", etc.

1850-1889

1890-1894

1895-1899

1900-1904

1905-1909

1910-1914 (incomplete)

1915-1919 (incomplete)

1920-1924 (incomplete)

1925-1929 (incomplete)

1930-1935 (incomplete)

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