Hi guys,

My name is Clive Tillman and I live in Australia. I am new to family history, however I have been doing some research on my family tree and I have hit a brick wall in the Tillman line.

My great grandfather was Hugo Joseph Tillman (also Tillmann) and he was born in Germany in c 1874- 75. He migrated to the UK sometime before 1901 and married a local English woman in 1904. The only information I have on my great grandfather is from the 1901 and 1911 UK census records and his marriage certificate. In the 1901 census he lists his birthpalace as Koblenz Germany. On his marriage certificate he lists his father's name as "Joseph Tillman" and a man of "independent means". The only other information I have from the records is that my great grandfather Hugo Joseph Tillman was initially a painting dealer, then sometime between 1904 and 1906 he changed occupation to work as a wine merchant's manager. By the 1930s he appears to have been working as a real estate agent (I know this from my grandfather's marriage records).

I have tried to contact local repositories in Germany for information on Hugo Joseph Tillman and Joseph Tillman, but all to no luck. I have, however, done some research through Familysearch and I am now starting to get a suspicion that the original spelling of the name could have been "Dillmann" because there was a Hugo Mat Dillmann baptised in Koblenz in 1874 with a father "Joseph Dillmann". How common would it be by the late 1800s to shift between "Dillmann" and "Tillmann". What tips could you guys give me for finding out my origins?

Name You Are Researching Tillmann Dillmann Tillman Dillman

Hi Clive,

Thanks very much for your post.

The interchanging of “D” and “T” is quite common in Germany records. It happened several times in my family (from the Karlsruhe area) as well. Eventually after my line emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania and then to Canada the British recorded my ancestor’s name as Stillman!

I think you are likely on the right track.

I am the project admin for the Dillman DNA project. We currently have about 17 distinct Dillman/Tillman families in the project. Have you considered joining? None of the family lines that go back to Germany originate from Koblenz that I am aware of, but some are from nearby areas. A few of us toured Germany in 2009 and visited the areas of Limburg and Wetzlar which are near the Dill River and one possible source of the surname Dillmann. Koblenz would be a larger town where people from the smaller villages may have migrated for work. Very interesting.

Name You Are Researching Dillmann

Thanks for the reply.

Yes my great grandfather was the Hugo Tillman from the 1911 census record you sent me. In the 1901 UK census there was a Hugo Tillmann (with the original German spelling of Tillmann) of the exact same age and he lists his bithplace a "Coblenz"- I am almost certain this is an entry by my grandfather. From my research it appears that Tillmann is quite common around the western side of Germany, especially around the Rhineland Pflanz state.

I am thinking that this entry could be my great grandfather's christening:

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ND1P-RJ2

Everything matches, the year, location and the names (except for the D rather than T). The religion also matches because my grandfather was a Catholic so I suspect that his father might have been also a Catholic. The only anomaly is the "Mat.", on all the UK records my great grandfather used Hugo Joseph Tillman or just Hugo Tillman, never Mat.


Yes the whole D and T thing seems to be quite common with German ancestors. As a funny little side story, English was the second language of my late mother because she was from the Philippines, when she used to sign up for things at stores she would say "Tillman" but the storeperson would often write her surname down as "Dillman". When I was a young child I still remember being in a department store and my mother telling the storeperson "my name is Tillman, T not D". My father used to make fun of her over over this when he saw a letter or something with Dillman on it and he would always say "the name is Tillman not Dillman!". It looks like my mother might be getting the last laugh given that our original Germanic ancestors used D and T interchangeably!

After seeing this confusion first hand my mother's experience I could understand how newly arrived German immigrants with think accents could have their names recorded incorrectly by record holders.

Name You Are Researching Tillmann Dillmann Tillman Dillman