Acknowledgement: Writings from the "Gross" Family History" compiled by Brother Placid Alois Gross, Assumption Abbey, Richardton, ND., 1970.
When doing research one can find our name spelled in more than one way. Throughout history it has been spelled "Gros", "Gross" or "Grosz". The research gets even more complicated because when a German word ends with a "double S" they have another alphabet that replaces the "SS". This letter looks like a combination of a "B" and a "Z". It is called "ess-tset". Church records in Germany in 1828 spelled it Gross, but they use the ess-tset which almost looks like a "Z". Some of the relatives however kept the old spelling. Joseph and his descendants who lived at Raleigh, ND., continue spelling it "Grosz".
The first definition of Gross is great. Other meanings are big, huge, large, tall or on a large scale. In the English language the word "gross" has several different meanings, but since the name has its orgin in German we must keep the German definition.
(Comment by Robert Gross)
Brother
Placid stated that his ancestor John Grosz, his first
ancestor in America, continued spelling his name
"Grosz." John Grosz is the son of Mathaus Grosz
and Francisca Eberle and the brother of Ignatz Gross. Rumor has
it that Ignatz Gross started spelling his name Gross instead of Grosz
after it was listed as such in the manifest log of the
ship, Havel, they traveled to America on. The passenger list and
ship's manifest log can be found in the Scrapbook of the Ignatz
Gross web page, as compiled by the Morman Church historical
records of Ellis Island.