The Witzels of Fulda

he distribution of Witzel families in present day Germany very strongly supports the conclusion that the Witzel surname developed around the city of Fulda. The two maps below were created by using the German phone directory. Both maps reflect the percentage of Witzel families with respect to the current population:

created by Thomas R�tter - 2005	created by Christoph Stoepel - 2006

When considering that most offspring remain close to their place of birth, such a map should reflect a point of origin of a family name. Both maps clearly indicate that within the Fulda region, in the District of Kassel, live the greatest percentage of Witzel families. The R�tter survey tells us that the towns of greatest concentration are Eichenzell and H�nfeld, with significant percentages in the cities of Kassel, Fulda, Eiterfeld, K�nzell, Bebra, Wabern, Sontra, Witzenhausen and Wildeck. All of these villages are situated in a small area in the eastern part of the district Kassel (close to the border to Thuringia) between the city Kassel and the town Fulda (including the area surrounding Fulda).

When considered with the history of the Georg Witzel family of Vacha, evidence points strongly to a surname of single origin. The records in local church record books also record a migration of Witzel families as shown in the two maps above. �

09-30-2006

�	Stoepel, Christoph. Geogen Onlindienst. 2006. Last retrived on September 3, 2006: http://christoph.stoepel.net/Geogen-localized-en.aspx �
�	R�tter, Thomas. German Surname Maps. 2005. Last retrived on September 30, 2006: http://www.tr62.de/names/default.html � �

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