Brenneman is a Mennonite family name which has been common in North America. The ancestor of most of the American Brennemans was Melchior, who fled to Germany from his home in the canton of Bern, Switzerland in 1671 because of the persecution of the Mennonites. The first of the family to come to North America seems to have been the son of Melchior, also named Melchior, who settled in what is now Lancaster County, PA, probably in 1717. Among other Brennemans whose descendants are numerous in North America was Nicolaus, who may have been a grandson of the first Melchior named above. Nicolaus was born in 1736 and lived on an estate near Darmstadt in Germany. His descendants were mostly Amish Mennonites. In the late 18th and 19th centuries Amish Brennemans lived in Mengeringhausen, Waldeck and other near-by villages, as well as near Marburg, Hessen.

A family history published in 1938 listed more than 3,200 persons under the name of Brenneman and its variants, together with many thousands of others who are direct descendants of the several Brenneman ancestors treated in the book.

Among the Mennonite church leaders bearing this family name were Daniel Brenneman of Indiana, a leader in the founding of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ; John M. Brenneman of Ohio, who was a bishop and author, as well as a champion of Sunday schools, church literature, and evangelistic meetings; Christian K. Brenneman (1880-1919), city mission worker in Nampa, Idaho and Canton, Ohio; and George Brenneman (1821-89), a bishop of the Pike and Salem congregations in Ohio. Other well-known Mennonite Brennemans included Timothy Brenneman, a missionary in Argentina and later the pastor of the church in Sarasota, FL; Fred Brenneman, a missionary to India and later a physician in Hesston, KS; and Aldine Brenneman, a minister in the Virginia Mennonite Conference.

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