General Notes

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

2  SOUR S332582
3  DATA
4  TEXT Date of Import: 14 Jan 2004


[daveanthes.FTW]

*Full name:  Ada Dressur of Pickering cum Gotland

   The name Ada is thought to be short for Adam.   In 1327-33, records indicate he paid fealty taxes presumably for the wars in Scotland & France.  The name suggests he was from Gotland, but lived in Pickering. There are 2 possibilities.  There is a
Goathland located about 15 miles from Pickering on the North Yorkshire moors and there is Gotland, an island in the Baltic sea which is part of Sweden.
    Between 1229-1329, the Teutonic Knights from Germany conquered the entire Baltic region of Europe.  This was a religious military order formed by the German Crusaders in 1190 and recognized by the Pope in 1199.   It's members consisted only of
German noblemen.   It is widely believed that the Dresser surname came from Germany to Gotland in the 1200's by one of these knights and eventually spread throughout England.   The Dresser surname was quite common in Germany before that time with the
spelling variations of Drescher, Dresner, Dreiser, Dreser, Dressler and Von Dresser.
   Their full name is Teutonic Knights of Saint Mary's Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel.  Patterned after the original Crusader Knights that aimed to rescue Jerusalem from the heathens, this order was created to conquer the heathen Slavs of northern Prussia
and the entire Baltic region.  It was named after the Teutons, an ancient Germanic tribe that was annihilated by a Roman army.  The order still exists today, but just as a charitable organization based in Vienna.
    However, others believe the name came from Denmark during the Danish invasion of England in the 11th century.  Denmark conquered  and ruled all of England from 1014 - 1035 and had great  influence through the 14th century.  Specifically, the name
Christopher Dresser, a Danish sea Captain, who arrived in Britian in 1352 has been mentioned, but not yet proven.  Keep in mind though, Denmark was one of the Baltic countries conquered by the Teutanic Knights and variations of the Dresser surname are
found in English records as early as 1275.  Checking current telephone books, there are still many Dressers, with various spelling variations, throughtout Germany, but no similiar surname exists in Denmark.  You decide.

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March 8, 2000.  A letter I received from Gottfried Keindl, a historian for the Order of Teutonic Knights in Germany, suggests the Dresser surname may have come from Adam Tressler.  Adam was a treasurer for the order somewhere in the Baltic area.
Treasurer in German is Tressler, sometimes written as Dressler or Tresler.  Though the high position of Treasurer was always held by a monk, there were many civilians working in his office.  He found no direct evidence on file though to prove the
connection.
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If this is true, many of the Dressler and Tressler family lines I have seen could be related.
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