Talk:Hoffman family

Origins
Somebody with a common German name born in a Baltic city heavily settled by ethnic Germans? I think most people would assume that his origin was German, but for some inexplicable reason, Eugene A. Hoffman, the author of the book (American, published in 1899) used as a source, argues that the family was of Swedish origin, which influenced the original version of this article.

E.A: Hoffman attempts to explain the German name Hoffman as a translation from a Swedish name Hoppman ("Man of Hope"). The problem is that not only does he present no evidence for a Swedish origin, there is no evidence of the existence of such a name, and the author was very likely unaware of the fact that at the beginning of the 17th century, surnames were not yet even all that common in Sweden.

That a publication can be presumed to be a reliable source for some aspects of a subject (the American genealogical and biographical data), does not mean that we need to assume that it is correct where it goes clearly beyond an area with which the author is comfortable.

Another point about the book in question: this portrait does not look like it came from the mid-17th century. Hair and clothes indicate an 18th century origin. --Hegvald (talk) 09:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You're probably right about the origin, it's rather Baltic-German, although the source doesn't say so. We better leave it blank, for the time being. Kraxler (talk) 02:24, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Baltic Germans
I am a descendant of the Hoffman/Hoffmann family from Talinn Estonia. They were Baltic Germans, not Swedes or Finns. This is obvious as the last name is German, and Talinn was controlled by Baltic Germans. Many geneaology books written in the 1800s and early 1990s including the one by Eugene A. Hoffman, are full of incorrect information such as the false claim that an obviously Baltic German family must be Swedes because at the time of their emigration Centuries ago Sweden had control over what is now Reval Estonia. The article needs to be updated with this correct information.100.34.234.175 (talk) 16:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)