© 1998 John L. Shrum

I've been asked to relate what I know about our family's surname, and especially the variations in how we find it spelled today. This information comes from ten years of observations made in exploring family roots in the U. S. and Europe. First a little background.
Our Shrum and Schrum ancestors came to America from western Europe, from the small kingdoms, and principalities that combined to make up the country of Germany. This area was not known as "Germany" until that country was created about 1865, long after our ancestors had left. In Europe the records show that the family name was spelled Schramm, or Schram. It is still spelled that way among our "cousins" there.
The Schramm surname from the 1400's onward was associated with metal working, and many families served their communities as coppersmiths. Coppersmiths form and shape pots, pans, utensils and other products from copper metal. The Schramm men of western Europe constructed and operated hammer mills to anneal and shape copper into useful products. It appears that they closely guarded their metal working knowledge, teaching the details only to their descen-dants, as most new copper mills were operated by Schramms. Within a hundred and fifty years Schramm men had established and were operating many copper mills across Northern Europe, the region which is now Germany, Denmark and Sweden. These mills were located in valleys where they could be powered by water from a stream. It was reported that when the mill was in operation the thud of the coppersmith's hammer could be heard all across the valley.
The first group of Schramms who came to America arrived with a large group of "German" immigrants in the years 1708-1710. These immigrants came to New York, formerly a Dutch colony. They were sent up the Hudson River by the New York governor to settle frontier areas in the Catskill mountains. After making improvements, promises to these settlers were not kept, and the government forced survivors into more remote frontier areas. Because they were mistreated by the New Yorkers, few of the later "German" immigrants would opt to settle in the New York colony. They would head for New Jersey and Pennsylvania almost as soon as they landed.
Because New York had been founded as a colony of the Netherlands (Holland), the established scribes and recorders had a background with the Germanic language common to that country and areas east of there in Europe. Thus in the state of New York, records show German surnames almost exactly as they were spelled in Europe. This was not the case in the other colonies where mostly "English" scribes wrote and recorded names on court and government records. These scribes wrote down a name as they heard or understood it. This is important to understand, as these court, land, and probate documents are the basis for the variations in the spelling of our name today. The scribe would hear the name pronounced in the foreign tongue of the immigrant. He would then record in the official documents, as best he could, what he had heard said. These records then became the basis for land transfer, taxation, court action, and identification.
Most of us with "Shrum" and "Schrum" and "Shrom" and "Schrom" surnames descend from the family of Schramm immigrants, one Johann Jacob Schramm and Anna Maria, and sons, who landed in the fall of 1738, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This family settled on the frontier (then), at York, Pennsylvania, eighty miles west of Philadelphia.
Several sons of this immigrant group moved to new frontiers beyond York, before the War of Independence. Nicholas moved south to Lincoln County, North Carolina about 1765. Johannes moved westward, settling in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania about 1770. David (Theobald) settled in the Shenandoah Valley in northern Virginia after 1776. George, the oldest, remained at the homestead in York County.
Nicholas' descendants today in North Carolina are found with both Schrum and Shrum surnames, with the split about even. The majority of this ancestral group who pioneered into Tennessee, Missouri and points west are found with the Shrum surname.
Johannes' descendants are primarily all of Shrum surname, with a few branches reverting to Schrum in more recent times. Likewise with descendants of David. The largest surname variations are found with George's descendants in York Co., Pa., where we find Schrum, Schram, Shrom, and Schrom, but few Shrums!
In every colony except New York, Schramm (pronounced "shrum" in the native tongue, then and today) became "Shrum", "Schrum", "Srum", or "Shrom", at the whim of the English speaking recorders and scribes.
In the Reformed and Lutheran church records in the communities where the immigrants settled, the surname is almost always shown in the German script as "Schramm" or "Schram"! After 1800 it seems that the scribes were better educated. The names for the later Schramm immigrants were more often officially recorded as "Schramm" or "Schram". For these immigrant families the name remains Schramm today, except that because of animosities toward Germans in the periods of World War I and II, many of German ancestry took steps to have their surname anglicized or softened to avoid stigma and persecution.
More than ninety per cent of the "Shrum," "Schrum," "Schrom," and "Shrom" surnames we have located in North America have been identified as descendants of Jacob and Anna Maria, the 1738 immigrants.
We are all cousins of the Schramms and Schrams, both in the United States and abroad.