Hello,
thanks for mail,
it is correct, that "lernen" is the german translation of "to learn", the name Lerner is very seldom in Germany, in the Telephone dictionary of Essen with 600000 people is only one Lerner.
Magdalena Lerner, born 03.04.1805, died 29.10.1881, was one of my gr-gr-grandmothers, she was married with Matthäus Selg, born 05.05.1792, died 19.09.1856.
Their daughter, Barbara Selg, born 16.07.1832, died 10.12.1893, was the mother of my grandfather Karl Butz, born 25.09.1875, died 25.02.1939, the father of my grandfather was Ignaz ( Ignatius ) Butz, born 1.06.1829, died 12.02.1900, and my grandfather was married with Kreszentia Laub, 28.02.1887, died 14.11.1972.
I think, that all these ancestors lived in southwestern Germany, but i know it not exactly, only sure is, that my grandmother, who I knew personally, and her husband Karl Butz came from a little town Oggelsbeuren near Biberach, about 80km in the north of Lake Constance, to a farm in Ostrach-Laubbach, 80 km western, where she had 14 children, 12 of them , my aunts and oncles and my father Bernhard Butz, born 16.01.1918, died 6.05.1997, got adult and lived and live in the southwestern german states Baden-Württemberg and 2 in Bavaria.
It is supposed, that these grandparents were farmers and lived in countrylike southwestern regions - and in former times most people lived over generations in the same region. I´ve heard some years ago from my father, that his ancestors perhaps lived in the countryside region near Heilbronn, an industrial town in the east of Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Wuerttemberg .
In the Genealogical Index there are many unknown Butz in former times in southwestern Germany, in Westfalia and in the near of Braunschweig-Hannover.
My father thirty years ago had contact with a publisher of literature of music notes named Butz in Braunschweig and he had sent him some Exlibris with a black and white heraldic figure of about 1480 of a "Bartholme Butz" of the region of Braunschweig and he meant, there were the origin of the name, but I´ve it not here with me.
Perhaps the ancestors of my mother also are interesting for You - there names were Leo Frank born 1883 and his wife Barbara Hensle from Nordweil and Franz Sales Frank about 1800, Friedrich Franz Würth 1860 from Stein am Kocher /Hohenlohe, Barbara Hensle, Elisabeth Hartmann 1863 from Mönchszell near Heidelberg .
Here I´ve some more details, occupations, regions, all lived in southwestern Germany, especially in Baden on the Rhine between Freiburg/Basel and Heidelberg, but one of the former relatives, Hermann Frank, immigrated about 1890 to the USA, was some years ago for visit in Germany again, but died in USA.
A sister of him is over 90 years old and lives in Freiburg.
Unfortunately I didn´t find on of these ancestors in the Genealogical Index.
And an aunt of me, youngest sister of my father, might have more exact information.
Till now I didn´t research intensively, but on a meeting of relatives of my father in July I met some cousins, who are also interested in their family history. May be, I get more information soon. I´ll tell You.

If You know people, who might be interested in these names, i´d be glad for making connection.
Bye,
Ewald Butz, Essen , Ruhr-area, Germany