Thursday, January 20, 2011

In Search of Stoda

Stoda, Stood, Studa, Staden, Von Stade—That’s Me (us)
By Kevin Anthony Stoda

I came across the website WORDNIK--Zeitgeist • Word of the day

http://www.wordnik.com/words/Stoda/examples

I hadn’t known that the name STODA [1] had been picked up in the literati world prior to this. I was more than flattered by some of the examples given for this zeitgeist of a word, name or phrase.

Then I was inspired to write down some notes for the many remaining Stodas (and my new daughter and wife0—as our many European Stoda cousins, such as the Count Von Stade clan have apparently disowned us—probably long before Friederich Stoda (Stud or Stoda or Stood) left Wickerstadt approximately some 175 years ago—to join the American experiment and ultimately find his demise due to a fever from sleeping for weeks on cold ground during the War between North and South a few decades later.

Great Great Great Grandpa Stoda was with a Wisconsin unit. (which goes to show that eventually we all are connected to someone who has relatives in Wisconsin as it says at the end of the movie 2012.)


A Stoda? What’s that?
When I was a child growing up, I was teased about my last name. Bullies would “teaze” it, tease me about it, and mispronounces it.

My brother and I were called:

STODA-POP!
Stodanavich!!!
Stodabaker!!
Skoda!!!
STOOOOO—DAAAHH—Pop
Sto-DAAHH

Our family is actually named Stoda—and is pronounced as it is spelled.

Our household was informed in letters by certain genealogy folks back in the 1970s--who sent out mass-mailings drumming up their own business— that the name was quite important. These same mass-mailing adverts also tried to convince my parents to pay for elaborate and/or questionable research on the family tree by noting in their letter that (1) there were no more than 50 households in the USA with that “handle” and (2) the name was derived from some European royalty that had its coat of arms.

Well, my family was interested in getting to our roots but we didn’t have money set aside for that sort possible scam. Later, I became a history major and world traveler. Slowly, I have begun to pick up bits-and-pieces over the years. For example, my dad said that there were a lot of “Bohemians” on our side of the family. I had thought that meant that they were fringe and avant-garde types from the turn of the 20th century. Later, s I came to know European geography, I began to look at the real Bohemian landscape for information. Recently, I have learned that there are several Stoda place names in the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/19073212

However, when for the first time in 1989. I went to Prague for the first time in 1989, I had equired whether the name was, in fact, Bohemian. I was told by the Bohemians in Prague that it, the name Stoda, sounded like it was Moravian. The Moravians in Prague said it sounded Bohemian to them. On the other hand, both the Moravians and Bohemians agree, thought that it might be Slovakian.

http://www.fallingrain.com/waypoint/RS/STODA.html

In addition, the Polish people I met in later years have agreed that it—Stoda-- must be a Slavish name or word or root. It may even be Polish, too.

It was only years later—i.e. after talking to my father and several relatives once again about their memories of their ancestors—did I once-again get onto the track that the name Stoda was Germanic and probably of Saxon origin—i.e. like those Anglo-Saxons who had turned-over the language and the cultures of the British isles some 1500 years ago. (I have also gotten some hints on-line recently that STODA is perhaps a Friesian word or name. It certainly has a definition in Norsk—an old Scandinavian and Viking language. It means roughly watch-a-ma-call-it. )

In any case, several years ago, I came up with a British (English) for “Stad”—from which shows that possibly my family’s last name shad left its mark in the UK (or visa versa) .

stād) definition
n. 1. A stadium.
1. A landing place or wharf.

The “Stade” also has it’s place in Hastings—as in “the battle of Hastings“. Stade is an important location in Hastings today. “The Stade is a shingle beach, situated in Hastings Old Town. It has been used for beaching boats for over a thousand years, a use which continues to this day: it is now home to Europe's largest fleet of beach-launched fishing boats.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stade

“The word ‘Stade’ is an old Saxon term meaning "landing place", and dates from before the Battle of Hastings in 1066.”
Now, however, my story takes me back to the continent, i.e. the continent is where I must return after the Anglo-Saxons had been kicked out about 1100 years ago--in order to gain insight into the roots of the modern Stoda.
This is partially because--when looking for a British definition on Stoda, my search for my last name, Stoda,-- former Franken Empire of Charlemagne had its share of Stade.

FRENCH CONNECTION?There is currently a popular French rugby team with the name Stade—by the way.
For example, a simple perusing of newspapers in the UK might read, “STADE FRANCAIS do not have a great recent record in England but when they have won it has been at least partly down to taking advantage of their opponents' lack of confidence and form, and that could work in their favour against Bath today.” Stade can pull plug on Bath by The Racing Post (London, England)
In the British and French rugby context today, though, the meaning of the French “stade” is probably onlyrelated to the Latin word from which “the word” for “stadium” arrived into modern English.
On the other hand, with the name Stade being used currently by a football club in France, I need to add that Stoda certainly had some roots in Frankish lands in the era after Charlemagne passed away. For example, there was Lothar the First (von Stade)
http://fabpedigree.com/s016/f280326.htm
There was also Lothar the Second (von Stade).[2] He would have been George I’ s of England’s 19th (great) grandfather.
http://fabpedigree.com/s008/f140163.htm
In short, viceroys, barons, baronesses, counts and other folk were scattered over the subsequent generations. The family settled in Saxon and Friesian regions of what is now Germany.

INTERNET AGE
The first time I became aware of the value of the internet to provide me information on the Stoda name or its family tree occurred around 1997 when I first made a web page. Within a month of having put that website online, I was written an email by a doctoral student from Hungary who was interested to know if I was related to an Admiral Harold Stoda whose ship had gone down along the Adriatic Coast early in WWI.

Since then, I have learned quite a bit about how-widespread the Stoda name is. From Victoria in Austalia, where Stoda is a street name,

http://www.whereis.com/vic/heathmont/stoda-st#session=MTA=

to the Fingerlakes region in New York, where it is also a place name, Stodas can be observed to have left their mark. Likewise, there is even a large corporation called Stoda. (I have written to ask them for work but they don’t answer—a lot like the European von Stade and Stoda descendents, eh?)

http://www.stoda.com/

Likewise, individual Stodas have been sighted;

--touring the music world,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederica_von_Stade

--covering sports as syndicated columnists,

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/apr/12/whats-next-for-tiger-theres-no-tellin/

--flying for the USA Air Force and serving foreign wars,

http://www.dvidshub.net/tags/audio/jesse-stoda

--work in Afghanistan, Iran, and other dangerous places[3],

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/opinion/17kristof.html

--teaching in Kansas, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Taiwan,

https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/92494

--boxing in the UK

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=333236&cat=boxer

and blogging just about anywhere from South Africa, to the middle East and on to the Philippines.

http://missionzero.org/profiles/12-ldstoda


Meanwhile, I also have even contacted internet sites, like genealogy.com --which I think is sponsored by the Mormons, i.e. to find out more about my ancestors.

http://www.genealogy.com/index_r.html

I recommend you try it some time. Investigate your family tree and see how we are all still connected—somehow, someway.

p.s. We even have Japanese Stodas—but that is a different story.



NOTES
[1] Here are the words and context for which stoda was used for in WORDNIK. I am pretty certain that some of my former students in Germany put my name on Wordnik.

• -- Kevin Stoda, born in a small town in the USA decades ago, has traveled, lived and worked in 102 countries, and Stoda purposely chose to live in Europe with his new bride in 2009.
—Printing: GERMANY, I Have a Dream for You and Europe. What is Your Dream?
• It was in this waive that Friedrich Stade (Stoda), my great, great, great grandfather arrived in America.
—OpEdNews - Diary: GERMANY LIKES TO BUILD WALLS���or Chancellor Merkel,
• On-line candidate Stoda believes that by linking both Guantanamo Prison in Cuba and Ft. Benning´s SOA activities is the most appropriate way to say to the world that (1) America is cleaning house and (2) opening questions of terror and prosecution to greater public introspection at a location where militarism and torture have been directly and indirectly promoted by various USA regimes for decades.
—Close Guantanamo, Move It to School of the Americas, Prosecute Both
• Meanwhile, their two girls, twins (and the oldest of the Stoda kids), entered a German school in Neu Isenburg.
—HOMESCHOOLING: VERBOTEN IN GERMANY STILL IN 2009
• Here is what Stoda is trying to do ... by ALONE on Thursday, Jan 3, 2008 at 6: 16: 16 AM
—IOWA VOTERS, PLEASE, SHAKE UP THE SYSTEM AND CHANGE THE WORLD IN 2008!
• Soon, the Stoda and their Navigators program for military personnel in and around Frankfurt was shut down by this intervention of the Hessen state due to the Stoda family’s homeschooling program of their kids.
—HOMESCHOOLING: VERBOTEN IN GERMANY STILL IN 2009
• INTERNET BUZZ IS AS HIGH AS EVER ON “IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY” AS 2008 ELECTION DRAWS TO A CLOSEBy Kevin Stoda Even though media wonks and the Democratic Party leadership haven’t got it yet, media consumers and internet users are JUST as interested as ever in seeing an impeachment of both George W. Bush and Richard (Dick) Cheney for crimes against the constitution and abuse of power.
—INTERNET BUZZ IS AS HIGH AS EVER ON 'IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY' AS 2008 ELECTION DRAWS TO A CLOSE
• NOTES The Israeli Apartheid Wall, http://www. auphr.org/thewall/ Photos of Security Fence Contest, http://www. pbase.com/yalop/fence Stoda, Kevin, “Apartheid Maps — Israel & Palestinian Bantustans”, http://tinyurl. com/394x3a Stop the Wall, http://www. stopthewall.org/
—Barrier Walls around Jerusalem
• Stoda is an idiot.
—http://www.palmbeachpost.com

[2] http://www.mathematical.com/walbecklothar905.html

*Lothar II Graf von Walbeck und Stade
born 0905 Walbeck, Sachsen, Prussia
died 3 December 0991

father:
*Lothar I Graf von Walbeck und Stade
died 5 September 0929 Lenzen, Germany

mother:
*Suanhilde wife of Lothar I Graf von Walbeck und Stade
(end of information)

siblings:
*Henrich "the Bold" Graf von Stade & Heiangau born before 0930 Stade, Hannover, Germany
died 9/11 May 0976

spouse:
*Mathilde von Engern-Arnsburg
born 0907?
died 3 December 0990

children:
*Heilika (Eila, Helikswintha) von Walbeck born about 0926 Walbeck, Saxony, Prussia
died 19 August 1015
*Lothar III Markgraf von Nordmark died 25 January 1003
Siegfried I von Walbeck

biographical and/or anecdotal:

notes or source:
LDS
ancestry.com
[3] Aubrey Stoda (and others) appears in Troop Scoop sometimes

http://www.troopscoop.typepad.com/updates/page/8/

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2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Are you talking about Johann Fredrich Stade who Married Margaret Zilling? I have their marriage cert and he signs his last name as Stade. He is also my Great Great Great Grandfather. I have a copy of their wills and other info if you are interested. Thanks for blogging this information it is very interesting.

Dawn
Danich1@wi.rr.com

8:45 PM  
Blogger Kevin Anthony Stoda said...

Yep, that is the one. Only Stoda in the civil war, died in 1871 due to suffering in the war sleeping on cold ground as he was already over 33 to 36 years of age.

6:44 AM  

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