Is Niemeyer a Jewish last name?

My family has been asked several times if we're Jewish, and a little bit of my own research has suggested that we are. Anybody know for sure?

Is Niemeyer a Jewish last name?
Just have a look at the links I have posted below, I found it really interesting.


http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact...


http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact...


http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact...


http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/Fact...


http://www.houseofnames.com/fc.asp?sId=%26amp;...


I hope this helps you.
Reply:Jewish is still a religion. There's only one sure way to learn your own family history that's to research it back one generation at a time. We just cannot read shortcuts into surnames.
Reply:I searched the Family Finder on JewishGen (the largest Jewish genealogy site online) and there are no people researching the surname NIEMEYER or NIEMAYER - There is one person from Ill. who is researching the spelling NIEMEIER. http://www.jewishgen.org





I think that your best bet would be to find the ship manifest which brought your NIEMEYER (spelling could vary) family to the U.S. You can do this via the Ellis Island database(if you believe this to be the port of entry) or through http://stevemorse.org . I prefer the latter as you can play around more with the parameters of your search.





If you find your relatives' ship manifest/s, and they were Jewish - you would see the ethnicity listed as "Hebrew".





Good luck...
Reply:I don't think it directly pertains to the Jewish heritage. There are a lot of variations of that name, like Niedermeyer, and often, these variations occur in order to dissociate from the others who previously had the same name. I think it's more of a middle European name, German/Austian.
Reply:Frequently Jews took the surnames in the country that the lived in. My maternal grandfather was a Jew. He had some American Indian and Polish in him. The famiy name was Altman which in German means old man. So many of the Jews in the U. S. have German or Russian names because they came from those countries.





I might add beware of coat of arms peddlers. There is no law in the United States re heraldry and a person is free to display one if the wish but to do so is like putting up a picture of a famous person with their surname and claiming him as their ancestor whether they know he is or not.





It is possible persons funishing links to sites selling coats of arms are ignorant of the rules of heraldry. However, some might be working for coat of arms peddlers or own companies that sell coats of arms. I feel those who peddle them are descendants of snake oil salesmen of the past.
Reply:I would tend to agree this this appears to be a German name. I would ask on the Niemeyer surname message board:





http://genforum.genealogy.com/niemeyer/





Good luck,


Dave


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