Margaret Doering, 1844-1923

Doering

A branch of the family, bearing the variation “Doering”, also flourished during this period. This branch moved from Thuringia to the regions of Braunschweig, Lueneburg and Meklenburg in the 13th Century.

The family acquired property around Hanover and owned the estate of Badow. The name Doering was also prominent in Saxony where they controlled the estates of Boehlen, Seelingstadt, Muelback, Trautzschen and Roitzsch. Later they spread out into Bavaria and Prussia. The variation Diericke, or Dierecke, also features prominently in the family’s history. This branch of the family has possessed many estates since the 14th Century, including estates in the Magdeburg area in the 16th Century and in Silesia and eastern Prussia in the 18th Century.

Notable members of the surname Doering in this period include Johann Christoph Doering, who was responsible for the ennoblement of the family in Sweden in 1719. He rose to position of Major-General in the Swedish army. Johann Doering was the royal Danish financier at Kiel. D. David Doeringk (Doering) (d. 1636), the Lord of Boehlen, was ennobled in 1630 in reward for his services as royal advisor to the Princes of Saxony. He was also the Lord of the estates Seelingstadt, Muehlbach, and Trautzschen, and later became Privy Councillor and advisor on mines and resources. He was the right-hand man of Prince Johann Georg I of Saxony, and indeed was known in his time as the Prince’s “oracle”. His sons went on to acquire reputations as learned men. Of these was David II, a Saxon advisor and Chancellor of the Wurzen College.

His grandson, Ernst Friedrich von Doering, was the Royal Polish and Saxon Justice Advisor and later became the Privy-Councillor and Chancellor of the college at Naumburg. The name Diericke was prominent among high ranking officers of the Prussian army during the 18th Century.

After the First World War, Thuringia remained a free state until it became a part of the German Democratic Republic in 1952. Many German people left their homeland for the New World, a process of emigration to North America that began after 1650. Their highest density of population was found in the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Texas, Illinois and California, while in Canada the majority of immigrants settled in the Prairie provinces and Ontario.

Among the settlers with the name Doering was Franz Doering, who settled in Yorktown, Virginia, in 1778 at the age of 30. Heinrich Doering came to Canada in 1783 at the age of 32, Georg Eberhart Doring arrived in Philadelphia in 1752, as did Nicholas and Dorothea During in 1797, George Duhring in 1844, Charles Duhringer 1854, Michael Doeringer in 1856, and Joseph Dieringer in 1862. Johann Duringer settled in Baltimore in 1889 at the age of 45 with his wife Lucie and daughter Brigith.

Contributed by Alfhard Kowallek