Free tool for tracing your European family name...

[Beemerguy53]

I've been tracing my family for years, and besides the usual membership and subscription sites you can use, I came across this free database that will show you where in a given country people who share your surname live, and how many of them there are.

You pick the country you want, click on its map, then enter the name and click "Search" in the small box in the left top corner of that map. (There are a lot of ads on this site, so be careful not to wander onto one of those pages. Definitely ignore those big green "start" buttons!)

The results will tell you how many people in that country share your surname, and where within that country they live. The names of cities are not shown, so you might need to download a map for reference if you don't know the geography of the place you're searching, but it's informative and interesting.

Have fun!

Surname Map

 

[lihpster]

Missing a few countries. And my mother's maiden name is so common it makes the entire U.K. look like a weird shaped ripe tomato.

 

[Beemerguy53]

Missing a few countries. And my mother's maiden name is so common it makes the entire U.K. look like a weird shaped ripe tomato.

Eastern Europe is missing, but every nation west of Poland is available. My name is relatively uncommon in the Old Country, so much so that most of the people who share it are probably related to me.

 

[lihpster]

I can still narrow it down somewhat with my mother's maternal name, but it still lights up Scotland pretty good.

 

[quikdraw67]

My last name doesn't exist in Ireland.

It got changed between the Auld Sod and America.

I really don't care one way or the other. My forebearers are long dead, and I don't have any kids.

 

[arjay]

My mother had told me her maiden name was uncommon when she was a child. While researching her family I discovered an incredible number of men with that name had died in the Great War. Her dad was one of the lucky ones only to die in his forties

 

[DWalt]

The heaviest population concentration of my name shows to be in west central Germany in the Rhine valley. But I already pretty well knew that. The surprising thing is how uncommon it is in surrounding European countries. I grew up in a southern Ohio community that was heavily Teutonic due to a huge influx of German immigrants into the area during the decades before the Civil War. I have always heard that the early German settlers were drawn there because the area was so similar to Germany in terrain and climate.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Long ago I read that we are all related. That's why I don't send Christmas cards.

 

[SMSgt]

Long ago I read that we are all related. That's why I don't send Christmas cards.

Send one and tell them to pass it around.

 

[snowman]

I'm fairly certain the spelling of my name changed when my forebears immigrated, but I went ahead and typed it in and received a lot of dots. Does that mean that their software intuitively figures out the common original spelling and goes with those results?

Andy

 

[zeke]

Not a one, and my surname originated in England

 

[Alk8944]

I'm fairly certain the spelling of my name changed when my forebears immigrated, but I went ahead and typed it in and received a lot of dots. Does that mean that their software intuitively figures out the common original spelling and goes with those results?

Andy

No, it does not. I tried several variations of my "foundational" name, which is Kintner (Kirchner, Karchner, etc.)and got the result of "surname not found" in almost every case and country.

The name (Kintner) dates to the Carolingian Dynasty, 7th & 8th centuries, and supposedly, from other sources, is most commonly found in western Poland and eastern Germany. In Germany there were only six (6) occurrences of the name, and in Poland none, Netherlands one (1), and all of the smallest group size (1-2)! The current spelling of my surname appears only in the U.S., and there are fewer than 30 of us, all are related. Most are in PA, MD, FL, NE and UT.

 

[oldbrownhat]

I did some name tracing a few years ago and found that the original spelling of my surname is in the Domesday Book from the village of Huyton, east of Liverpool

Beemerguy's tracing tool shows a good blotch of us still around that area, with 412 instances overall in England.

 

[Golddollar]

My ancestor from France changed his name after he washed up in this country. Two variations of his French name have appeared in records here. One turned up "No Surname Found" but the other one made the map of France look like it had the measles, including with a few on Corsica. He left a pretty good trail here in America, because he got a job with Dupont and we found a copy of his Naturalization Decree from the US District Court in Wilmington, DE. He and his wife are now buried in Punxsutawney, PA.

 

[oldbrownhat]

My ancestor from France changed his name after he washed up in this country. There are two variations of his French name have appeared in records here. One turned up "No Surname Found" but the other one made the map of France look like it had the measles, including with a few on Corsica. He left a pretty good trail here in America, because he got a job with Dupont and we found a copy of his Naturalization Decree from the US District Court in Wilmington, DE. He and his wife are now buried in Punxsutawney, PA.

Aha! That explains your facility with French when hunting in Québec

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Mom and Dad's families are primarily German. For dad's we already knew there are 34 males in the US and about double that around Hamburg. Mom's family is extinct in Germany (after WWII) and about 125 males in the US.

One of my Paternal Grandmother's cousins was in WWI, and he figured he was fighting first and second cousins mostly. He died before the next letter home!

Mom's Maternal family are Normans, and there are sever hundred in the US and still thousands in Normandy. I ran into one from Cleavland at a church conference, but he didn't know of our branch from around NOLA.

Ivan

 

[Beemerguy53]

I'm fairly certain the spelling of my name changed when my forebears immigrated, but I went ahead and typed it in and received a lot of dots. Does that mean that their software intuitively figures out the common original spelling and goes with those results?

Andy

Andy, for years I too assumed that my family name was changed when my great-grandparents arrived from Europe...the spelling just doesn't "look right" for folks coming from their country of origin.

However, when I joined Ancestry a number of years ago, it quickly traced my family to the village from which they came, using the same spelling we've always used. And the Surname Map shows a few hundred people with my name, spelled the same way, living in that country, with some (who are surely relatives) living in the village.

Bottom line: They search for whatever you input. They don't try to second-guess or outsmart you.

 

[Beemerguy53]

The heaviest population concentration of my name shows to be in west central Germany in the Rhine valley. But I already pretty well knew that. The surprising thing is how uncommon it is in surrounding European countries. I grew up in a southern Ohio community that was heavily Teutonic due to a huge influx of German immigrants into the area during the decades before the Civil War. I have always heard that the early German settlers were drawn there because the area was so similar to Germany in terrain and climate.

The great Dr. Thomas Sowell has written about this in several of his books. Germans moving to North America were drawn to areas that were familiar to them, and reminded them of home.

 

[snowman]

Andy, for years I too assumed that my family name was changed when my great-grandparents arrived from Europe...the spelling just doesn't "look right" for folks coming from their country of origin.

However, when I joined Ancestry a number of years ago, it quickly traced my family to the village from which they came, using the same spelling we've always used. And the Surname Map shows a few hundred people with my name, spelled the same way, living in that country, with some (who are surely relatives) living in the village.

Bottom line: They search for whatever you input. They don't try to second-guess or outsmart you.

Well, how about that? I learn something every day, I guess. My name ends in "gelt", and I know from what German I've been exposed to that that "t" would normally be a "d"(trans. 'money') Example: Neufeld(pronounced "Newfelt"), was the name of an area college president here. I also live a couple blocks from a Shaneyfelt family, which I'm fairly certain would have been "Schonefeld"(umlauted 'o'; trans. "lovely field")

Anyway, thanks for the response, Beemerguy!

Regards,
Andy

 

[Rustyt1953]

A few years ago with my mom's help I traced my lineage back about 4 centuries. I am a product of the British Isles with the land of the thistle being the largest donor.