Any chance that Bechtel was originally Bechtelheimer?

Question

I am researching my Bechtelheimer line and have always wondered if some relatives had dropped the "heimer" part of the name. Any thoughts on this?

Haven't done a DNA test yet, but plan to very soon.

Lee Ann Smith Williams

Comments

Interesting question! Tag this for german_roots to get some help from people knowledgable about German names.

I have Bechtels in my tree here, but I can't tell you much about them -- I didn't do the research on them, and the profiles don't have much in the way of sourcing. However, there appear to have been multiple Bechtel immigrants to America, which suggests to me that the name Bechtel existed independent of Bechtelheimer.

Answer 1

This came up when I googled

Bechtel name origin:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechtel_(surname)

Answer 2

When I checked wikipedia I got a hit for Friedrich Bechtel (1855-1924) - a language professor who never left Germany. There is unfortunately no counterpart page in English, only in Deutsch. Then I checked a bit at FamilySearch, and you can find German Bechtels in the 16-1700s. So it seems to be independently old in Germany.

I wish you the best of luck getting some help from german_roots!!

Answer 3

I am a descendant of one of the six Bechtel immigrants who came to southeastern Pennsylvania in the early to mid 1700s. I've done quite a bit of research on the Bechtel descendants that remained in that area -- trying to sort them out. The name variants I have come across with these immigrants and their descendants are more to do with phonetic spelling differences. (Bechtel, Becktel, Pectal, Bechtold, etc).

I was under the impression that the suffix "heimer" meant from a place of that name. Maybe a town or village named Bechtel??

That being said, I think that DNA testing is an excellent idea. It looks like FamilyTreeDNA has a Y-DNA project for the surname Biddle/Bechtel/etc, but for that you would need a direct male descendant of your Bechtelheimer line.