Many people who research their family tree merely list the dates of birth, marriages, death, etc. but pay little attention to the origin or meaning of their last name. Based upon records I have in my possession, I believe I can trace my family tree back to Johann Georg Trauz (as the last name was spelled before 1800) born in a town near Pforzheim, Germany, in the year 1642. Curiosity, however, drove me to go beyond the listing of names and dates and explore the orign and meaning of the surname, TRAUTZ, The following is the product of that researach:

EARLY GERMAN MIGRATION

Germany, the country from which my ancestors emigrated, did not become a nation with borders separate and distinct from the Austria-Hungry Empire until 1867 when Prime Minister Bismark of Prussia forced Austria out of the then existing loose confederation of 30 central-European German-speaking states. Prior to the development of Germany as a separate nation, German-speaking peoples were not static. During the Middle Ages (1100 to 1500 A.D.) "Germans" often migrated to other German-speaking-speaking regions and to areas of north and central Europe including the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Ukraine and the Volga area of Russia.

On the other hand, German migration to America did not begin in earnest until 1709 when the Palaatines (puh-la’-tines) arrived and settled in the colony of New York. Although the term, Palatine," really applied only to people from the Palatinate area of the Rhineland, today the German state of Rheinland-Palatinate, it was also used to describe people from the Southwest region of Germany, which includes the pre-1867 states of Baden, Bavaria, Elsass, Hessen and Wurttenburg. Between 1727 and 1775 nearly 70,000 Germans emigrated to Pennsylvania, the majority of whom were from the Palatines. Data from the International Genealogical Index (IGI) of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons), most of which is extracted from various church records, reveals those with the surname Trautz and its suffixes such as berger, begen, burger, etc.. lived within the five Southwestern German states listed above.

There are several reasons the Palatines contributed almost exclusively to the early German emigration to America: 1) The Palatines were the site of unrelenting conflict,

including the Thirty Years War, between Catholic and Lutheran nobles.. 2) The Palatines were composed primarily of small farms in which inheritance laws resulted in the equal division of family property among the surviving children. 3) Crop failures plus severe winters in the early 1700’s resulted in killing fruit bearing trees, shrubs and vines. 4) German industry had not developed sufficiently to enable urban areas to absorb the surplus population, thereby providing a stimulus to overseas migration.

 

GERMAN MIGRATION AFTER 1800

Prior to 1832 the annual arrival of German-speaking people in America never exceed 10,000. Beginning in 1832 and every year thereafter, except during the Civil War years, hundreds of thousand emigrated to America from every part of Germany.

By the l830’s political, religious, social and population pressures were so great that local communities paid passage overseas for those who wished to migrate but were too poor to pay their way.. In order to relieve the population pressures and the public purse, a number of emigrant societies known as auswanderungverein were established in various parts of Germany. These were organized on a self-help basis, with the support of various state governments to help member emigrate. The help included both money and advice.

German emigration to the United States peaked in 1854 when more than 250,000 Germans arrived. This level of immigration also existed between the period 1866 and 1873. It is estimated that between 1820 and 1900 the number of German immigrants totaled nearly 5 million and that altogether by the year 1970, seven million Germans emigrated to the United states. Today more than 60 million Americans, nearly one-fourth of our nation’s population, claim German ancestry.

TRAUTZ MIGRATION TO THE NEW WORLD

Passenger lists disclose the first person of record to arrive in America with the surname Trautz was Salome Trautz, who arrived in 1743. The next was Christina Trautz, in 1744. In the year, 1753 Christoph Trautz arrived in Philadelphia and in 1761 Johann Georg Trautz and Margaret Trautz disembarked in Philadelphia. Later passenger lists disclose that Gottlieb Trautz and Johann Trautz arrived in Philadelphia in 1856 and 1868 respectively. Barbara Trautz, age 58, who left Hamburg on the ship Saxonia arrived in New York on April 20, 1858. Christ (Christoph) Trautz, age 25, sailed on the Corilon from Bremen and arrived in New York on April 14, 1863.

Many passenger lists have not been indexed and published and, unless one knows the name of the ship, the date it sailed, and its destination, it is difficult to find the exact date an ancestor arrived in the United States. To further complicate matters, many Germans sailed to England and transshipped from various English ports. Finally, the list of passengers embarking from Bremen, the major port of emigration from Germany, were destroyed by bombs and fire during World War II.

My great-grandfather, Charles (Carl?) Trautz emigrated to America from Germany with his father and mother, Christopher and Mary Trautz, in 1858. His tombstone in a public cemetery in Jersey City* reveals he was born in 1846 and died in 1903.and his wife, Margaret, was born in 1846 and died in 1896. Charles and Margaret had six children Charles, Herman, Edward, Frank, Margaret and Mary. Edward, my grandfather, married Katherine Goetz, the daughter of John and Maary Goetz, who emigrated from Elsess (now Alsace-Lorraine, a part of France). Edward and Katherine had four children, William, Edna, Frank (b. 6/21/1900) and Harold.. My father, Frank Trautz, married Helen Gibson Tuttle (b. 1/29/1899) and had two children, Frank Robert (b. 3/31/24) and Edward. Arnold (b. 3/31/25). Frank married Florence Lanza and had three children, Wayne, Sheryl and Scott. Edward (b 6/10/25) married Stella Totten and had four boys, Edward Jr., Jason, Johnathan and Robert. (*Charles and Margaret Trautz and many other family members are interred at the Bayview Cemetery, Jersey City, New Jersey. This cemetary overlooks the Statue of Liberty. Many of the Trautz headstones are weathered and difficult to read.)

TRAUTZ IS NOT A COMMON NAME IN THE U. S.

Since the first people with the name Trautz arrived in America in the mid 1700’s one would expect there would be many people in the United States with that surname. Strangely, this is not the case. My research discloses approximately 160 telephone numbers listed in the U. S. with the last name Trautz. Why so few?

In a book entitled In Search of Your German Roots this warning appears; "In searching for your ancestors in passenger lists, or other lists, you must always be on the lookout for name changes, misspellings, names written as they sound (phonetically) names simplified, names anglicized and names changed accidentally or deliberately by immigration offices. These examples were given:: Koenig to King; Stein to Stone; Werfer to Weaver."

Here are examples of people born with the name Trautz who spelled their name differently after arriving in America 1) Christoph Trautz, who landed in Philadelphia in 1753 was later listed in a book entitled Pennsylvania German Pioneers as Christopher Trouts. He anglicize his Christian name and changed the last name from Trautz to Trouts.. Today the surname Trouts is common in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. 2) Augustus Trautz, was born in Germany in 1865. After a brief stay in New Jersey he moved to Prescott, Arizona where records listed his name as August Troutz. Today there are a number of Troutz’s in southwestern Arizona. My great-great grandfather Christopher Trautz was listed in the Jersey City Directory as Christopher Trautz, Christopher Troutz and Christopher Truatz.

Many immigrants from Germany were literate in their own language but not English. As a result, when immigration officers, clerks of various municipalities or census takers asked an immigrant’s name the response was oral. The official would often convert the oral response phonetically into an English equivalent.. For example: The German diphthong "au" is "ou" in English. The phonetic equivalent of "tz" is "ts." It reasonable to assume, therefore, that some immigrants with the surname Trautz ended up with a phonetic equivalent of, Trouts, Troutz, on immigration records, census reports, etc.

HOW DID LAST NAMES EVOLVE?

Prior to 1100 A. D. everyone in Europe had a given, or first name, often called a Christian name. Most given names were derived from other languages. For example:

John, Mary, Elizabeth, James, Joseph, Samuel, were derived from Hebrew; Alexander, Margaret, Philip derived from Greek; Clarence, Emily, Patricia, Victor, Virginia derived from Latin; Frank, Ethel, Arnold, Edmund, William,, and Howard were Teutonic.

At the turn of the first millennium (1000 A.D.) European population was sparse and life expectancy extremely short.. Because few people lived beyond 40 years of age, it was rare for more than two generations to live at one time. As a result patronyms were used rather than surnames. For example, if a man named John had a son, the son was called John’s son which later developed into a the surname of Johnson. Many languages have patronymic prefixes or suffixes which mean son. Here are some examples: German--sohn;; Scandinavian--sen; Russian -- ovich; Romanian -- escu; Irish -- O’, English son..

The first to adopt family names in Germany were the nobles which set them apart from the common people. German nobles frequently adopted as their last name the town or area they ruled. For example: If a noble named Wilhelm ruled the city of Mannerheim, the nobleman simply added von (from) Manneeheim to his given name and was called Wilhelm von Mannerheim. Eventually nobles made these family name hereditary and the surname descended from father to child.

As the population of Germany increased and commoners gained greater freedom, they too, began the practice of adopting a family name. Some even used the prefix "von." Others used suffixes such as Trautzenberg or Trautzbergen from Trautz mountain*, or Trautzel, of the Trautz’. Many surnames were adopted from the person’s occupation, for example, Schmidt (a blacksmith), Werfer (weaver), ‘Bekker (baker), Mueller (miller), Schumacher (shoemaker). Some used place names such as Steinbach (stoney brook), Trautzburger (Trautz fortress). Other used physical characteristics such as: Gross (big, fat), Schwartzkopf (dark headed). (*Trautzberg, is a mountain located between the Rhine River and Belgium in the present state of Reinhold-Palatinate.)

DOES THE SURNAME TRAUTZ HAVE A MEANING?

In 1977 I received a letter from Dr. Otto Rudolf Trautz (hereafter Otto) in which he said, "I went to school in Pforzheim at the northern end of the Black Forest. After getting my Ph.D. in Heidelberg I cane to the USA in 1928. My ancestry runs back to Pforzheim to around 1650.and two generations further back to Dillstein oder Weissenstein (two villages two to three miles south of Pforzheim which are now incorporated into the city). Pforzheim and its neighborhood probably is the chief supplier of the Trautz name to the US. It is a big jewelry center from where many have emigrated to Newark, N. J. and its neighborhood; that is, Union City, also a jewelry center."

Dr. Otto Trautz continued: "The name Trautz, before 1800 was written Trauz* and has the same root as "trud" in Gertrud and Hiltrud, etc., vertraut, getraut. Trautman, Trautwein etc. have been shortened to Trautz, the same as Friedrich, Friedbert, have been shortened to Fritz." (*I learned from Professor Juntune, who teaches of German at Michigan State University, that prior to 1750 the letter "z" at the end of a German word or name was pronounced "tz." He believes that for purposes of clarity the "z" eventually evolved into "tz."

Several years ago I visited Otto Trautz’ son, Otto Dieter Trautz who lives in Cabot, Vermont. He graciously provided me with a copy of his family tree which dates back to Johann Georg Trautz, who was born in Pforzheim, Germany in 1642. . I also have the family tree of John (Johann?) Trautz who came as boy with his family from the Black Forest region of Germany and landed in Philadelphia in 1868.

VARIATIONS OF THE NAME TRAUTZ

The IGI of the Latter Day Saints contains the following variations of the surname Trautz:

Trautz Trauz Traus

Trauzberg Trauzberg Trautsberg

Trautzburg Trauzburg Trautsburg

Trautzch Trauzch Trautsch

Trautzchel Trautsschke

Trautzel Trauzel Trautshold

Trautzelt

Trautzen Trauzen

Trautzenberg Trautzenger

Trautzenbergen Trautzettle

Trautzenberger Trauzhold

Trautzenburg

Suffixes such as ch, chel, sch, schold, schke, zelltle are peculiar to Saxony, an east German state. All other suffixes have Palatine origins.

Before leaving the subject of the meaning of the name Trautz and its many suffixes, I would like to offer this theory: I believe the name Trauz or Trautz originated from the name of a mountain, Trautzberg, which is located in the southern part of the former state of Palatine (now Rheinland-Palatine).. As explained above, when commoners began to adopt surnames shortly after the first millennium, it was not unusual for them to use a local landmark such as a mountain or river. I beielve those who lived in the vicinity of Trautzberg adopted names identifying them as coming from near that mountain such as Trautzberg, Trautzbergen, Trautzberger, Trautzenberg, Traautzburgen, and Trautzburger, etc. As families moved from the vicinity of the mountain, I believe they shortened their name to Trautz, which agrees with Dr. Trautz’ theory above.

I can’t explain how the mountain came to be named Trautzberg. What is important, however, is the fact that people who lived nearby took the name of the mountain as their family name. As explained above, German surnames first evolved in the Middle Ages, from1100 A. D. to 1500 A. D. It would appear, therefore, the surname Trautz goes far back into German history.

 

PLACE NAMES IN GERMANY CONTAINING TRAUTZ OR

ITS VARIATIONS

Trautzberg -- A mountain 476 meters high (1562 feet) is located between the Rhine River and Belgium in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz. The nearest large city is Trier (an ancient Roman city) which lies southwest of the mountain.

Trautzburg -- A small hamlet at the foot of Trautzberg.

Trautzchen -- In English, "little Trautz" is a village which has been incorporated into the city of Pegau, Germany. Pegau lies between Pegau and Halle. Trautzchen is not a family name listed in the IGI. Several Coats of Arms in the name "Trautzchen" were registered in Germany in the early 1800’s.

Trauzenbach -- (Trauz’ brook) A town in Bavaria 49’ 01" N, 9’ 34" E

Trautshoven -- (Trauts field) A town in Bavaria 47’ 56" N, 11’ 49" E

Trautskirchen -- (Trauts church) A town in Bavaria 49’ 27" N, 10 36" E