Aspelmeier    

            Aspelmeier, literally “the Meiers on the Aspel” is a family surname that originated alongside an ancient swamp just north of Nettelstedt in Westphalia, Germany.  The Aspel is a small plain originally surrounded on three sides by the Grosses Torfmoor, a bog filled swamp north of the Wiehengebirge mountain range.  This small area has been home to dozens of generations of Aspelmeiers over the past several hundred years.

            The name Aspelmeier/Aspelmeyer/Aspelmeÿer is seldom seen outside this one small region in Northern Germany.  The three spellings are pronounced the same way in German and have been used interchangeably in the past.  In fact, the spelling was often tied to who actually wrote the name in official records.  The same person’s name may have appeared in two or three different manners in church and city records.  At some point prior to 1790 sons from the Aspelmeier family moved to nearby cities, villages and farms.  This movement probably began centuries before this date.  Their progeny account for the proliferation of the Aspelmeier name in Minden- Lübbecke Kreis (County) today. 

There are concentrations of Aspelmeiers in Nettelstedt, Hille, Lübbecke, and Stockhausen to this day.  The Aspelmeiers are recorded in written documents as early as the 30 Years war in the 1640’s when they filed a judicial complaint against the Noble family in residence at Stockhausen (to the West) to whom they owed fealty.  A large “Hof” or farmstead, owned by the Aspelmeiers has existed on the Aspel since then.  The current house has sheltered 12 generations of the Aspelmeiers over the past couple of hundred years.

All rights reserved: Chris Wyatt, Ludewig Aspelmeier's G-G-G-Great Grandson, © July 2000.