Origins Of The Dauth Surname

Scouring the various genealogical websites reveals a treasure trove of records detailing the life events of Dauths throughout history. On their own, these records are just a moment of an individual’s life, summarized as a date, location, and event. But when put into a context of other similar records, an interesting story starts to unfold.

Using a combination of birth, death, marriage, and resident records available on FamilySearch.com, Ancestry.com, and MyHeritage.com its possible to make “heat maps” of the Dauth name. A heat map in this context is simply how often the name “Dauth” appears in written text. The darker the color the more prevalent. Below are worldwide heat maps of the Dauth name from 1500-1600 AD and 1600-1700 AD.

The earliest instances of the Dauth surname occurs in 1578 in Frankfurt, Germany and then in 1579 in Iptingen, Germany.¹“Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPF4-P3S6 : 26 October 2021), Dauth, 19 Apr 1578; images digitized and records extracted by Ancestry; citing Burial, Frankfurt am Main, Hessen-Nassau, Preußen, Deutschland, Frankfurt, German Lutheran Collection, various parishes, Germany.²“Deutschland, ausgewählte evangelische Kirchenbücher 1500-1971,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPGZ-7TDL : 25 October 2021), Anna Dauth, 13 Sep 1579; images digitized and records extracted by Ancestry; citing Baptism, Iptingen, Iptingen, Vaihingen, Württemberg, Deutschland, Iptingen, German Lutheran Collection, various parishes, Germany. The earliest instance outside of Germany occurs in 1588 in Toulouse, France.³“France, Haute-Garonne, Toulouse, registres paroissiaux, 1539-1793,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPJX-PY1F : 8 March 2021), Jean Vidal and Jeanne Dauth, 26 Nov 1588; citing Marriage, Daurade, Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, France, Archives municipales de Toulouse (Municipal Archives of Toulouse), France. When looking at the 1500s as a whole, it appears that the Dauth name is just slightly more popular in Germany than in France. Its not until the 1600s that it becomes obvious that Dauth is a much more popular name in Germany. This supports the hypothesis that Dauth is German in origin based on its etymology.

Keeping this Germanic origin in mind, the following heat maps show a detailed breakdown of Germany by its states and cities. States are shown in shades of blue and cities are shown in shades of red. Hovering over the maps with your cursor will show how many “instances” of Dauth appear in that area over the given time period.

The earliest records from the 1500s place the origins of the Dauth name within the modern days states of Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, and Rhineland-Palatinate. The cities of Frankfurt and Iptingen in turn yielded the earliest and highest concentration of records during this time period.

During the 1600s these three states continued to have a large number of Dauth instances compared to the rest of Germany. Rhineland-Palatinate had the largest concentration, with the towns of Gau-Bickelheim and Weisenheim am Sand accounting for over 80% of all instances within the state. Baden-Württemberg had the second highest concentration, but no towns stood out as hotspots for the Dauth name. In the state of Hesse, the city of Frankfort accounted for over 90% of all instances within Hesse.

The 1700s saw continued growth in the same states.  Hesse had the largest concentration, with Frankfurt accounting for over 80% of all instances within Hesse, and over 40% of all instances nationwide. Rhineland-Palatinate had the second largest concentration, with the towns of Gau-Bickelheim and Weisenheim am Sand continuing to be hotspots for the Dauth name. These cities accounted for about 50% of all instances within Rhineland-Palatinate. Baden-Wurttemberg trailed behind this century with no particular cities showing high instances.

As with the prior centuries, the states of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Baden-Württemberg contain the majority of instances during the 1800s. Hesse contains about 40% of all instances, with the cities of Frankfurt and Mittelgrundau being epicenters. Baden-Württemberg accounts for about 30% of all instances, with the city of Zaisenhausen appearing as a new hotspot. Rhineland-Palatinate accounts for about 20% of instances nationwide.

From the 1500s to the 1900s the same three German states have consistently contained the highest concentrations of the Dauth name. Below are detailed maps of these three states overlayed with a city heatmap of all instances of the Dauth name from 1500-1900 AD.

From this rudimentary study we can make some general statements about the origins and movements of the first Dauths.

The first Dauths were German. The oldest records of the Dauth name date back to 1578 in Frankfurt, Germany. While the Dauth name did appear in France within a decade, by the end of the 1600s the surname Dauth was more than a thousand times more popular in Germany than anywhere else in the world.

The first Dauths originated from the German states of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Baden-Wurttemberg. Both the oldest and majority of records with the Dauth name are found within these three states. While the number of records in each state fluctuated drastically between the centuries, they were consistently the three most popular states for the Dauth surname.

The Dauths favorite city was Frankfurt. From the 1500 AD to 1900 AD Frankfurt has continuously had the most instances of the Dauth name each century.

The Dauths were drawn to the Upper Rhine Plain. Outside of Frankfurt, the Dauths were found throughout the regions of Rhenish-Hesse, Palatinate, and Northern Baden-Wurttemberg, nutrient rich agricultural lands bordering the Rhine and known as the Upper Rhine Plain.

Every year more and more records are being found and transcribed. Adding these records and data omitted from this study, could yield entirely different results. These conclusions are not set in stone and its likely in the future more insights into the history of the Dauths will be found.