It’s been 10 years (!) since I recommended the Geogen German surname mapping site.
Let’s revisit and see what’s new.

There are lots of surname mapping sites out there, but this is the best one I know focussing exclusively on Germany and Austria. Geogen is brainchild of Christoph Stöpel, a software developer from Ludwigsfelde, Germany. The featured image above is courtesy of Geogen v4_compat Christoph Stöpel.

About Geogen German Surname Mapping

Stöpel writes:

Geogen is the short form for ‘geographical genealogy’ which means location-based ancestor research. On this website you can create maps which show the distribution of surnames in Germany and Austria. Significant concentrations can point to a local root of the family or of the family name.

Searching GeoGen

When the site originally began in 2005, it was best to search in German with German diacritics. However, as of 2020,  Stöpel advises: “Enter your surname in the upper input field and click the Research button. German special characters (Ä, ö, ü and ß) are will be normalized. This means Müller as the same as Mueller.”

Please note: this site maps names for present-day German and Austrian borders. This site does not map names held by German-speaking ancestors who came from Prussia (East Prussia, Pomerania, Posen, Silesia, and West Prussia). These locations are now largely in Poland and outside the scope of GeoGen.

Questions about this site? You can contact Christoph Stöpel here. He l has been working on this project for 15 years. If you find this free site useful, consider donating.

Happy searching on the Geogen German surname mapping site. For more help with German genealogy research, try these posts from Sassy Jane.