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| Origins Available: |
| | Germany |
The ancestral home of the Bretschneider family is in the German state of Bavaria. The name Bretschneider is an occupational hereditary surname, a type of surname that was taken from a word describing or common to the profession of the original bearer. It is a name for a carpenter or a person who worked making shelves and other wooden objects. The name Bretschneider was originally derived from the Old Germanic word Brett, which means carpenter. It was given to a person who ran a sawmill or a lumber merchant. By the Middle Ages, the Bretschneider family had been elevated to the ranks of the nobility and had become extremely involved in the local social, economic and political affairs of Bavaria. It acquired a prestigious reputation for its contribution to the development of the district. The social status and prestige of the Bretschneider family was increased when it expanded and acquired distant estates in other areas of Germany.
The surname Bretschneider was first found in Bavaria, where the name could be considered to have made an early contribution to the feudal society which became the backbone of early development of Europe. There is record of a Sydel Bretsnyder in 1372 in Liegnitz and a Peter Bretsnyder in Breslau in 1397.
Jakob Bretschneider is listed as living in Dippoldiswalde in 1499 in a document called "Die Matrikel des Hochstifts Merseburg" which chronicles Germanic surnames. The name became prominent in local affairs and branched into many houses which played important roles in the savage tribal and national conflicts, each group seeking power and status in an ever-changing territorial profile. Bret or Brett are short forms of the name Brettschneider, a name meaning a person running a sawmill or a lumber merchant.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Bretschneider research. Another 71 words (5 lines of text) covering the years 1776, 1844, 1848 and 1880 are included under the topic Early Bretschneider History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
In the medieval era, many different cultural groups lived in the German states. There are thus many regional variations of German surnames from that era. Westphalians spoke Low German, which is similar to modern Dutch. Many German names carry suffixes that identify where they came from. Others have phrases attached that identify something about the original bearer. Other variations in German names resulted from the fact that medieval scribes worked without the aid of any spelling rules. The spelling variations of the name Bretschneider include Bret, Brett, Brette, Bretsch, Brettschneider, Bretsnyder, Brettschnyder and many more.
Prominent among members of the name Bretschneider in this period include
German settlers were among the most common to come to North America between the mid-17th and mid-20th centuries. Poverty and religious persecution drove many Bavarians to make this long trek. tenant farmers were also enticed by the prospect of owning land. From east to west, these German immigrants populated the United States, settling in Pennsylvania, Texas, New York, Illinois, and California. Ontario and the prairie provinces of Canada also provided homes to many. Early settlers bearing the Bretschneider surname or a spelling variation of the name include: