Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: sulzbach sultzbach sultzbaugh
Contents |
About the Project
The Sulzbach Name Study project serves as a collaborative platform to collect information on the name Sulzbach and its variants, which include Sultzbach, Sultzbaugh, Sulsbaugh, and Sulzbacher. The hope is that other researchers like you will join the study to help make it a valuable reference point for other genealogists who are researching or have an interest in this name.
As a One Name Study, this project is not limited to persons who are related biologically. Individual component studies can be used for focused research into specific geographic areas, time periods, and topics (such as DNA). These component studies may also include family branches that have no known link with each other, other than a shared name. Some researchers may be motivated to go beyond the profile identification and research stage to compile fully sourced, single-family histories of some of the families they discover through this name study project.
About the Sulzbach Name
It's reasonable to assume that all versions of this family name ultimately stem from Germany (and possibly also German-speaking places in the modern nations of Austria, Switzerland, and northern Italy), where the name was and is Sulzbach, a toponym derived from the names of one or more places.
In the Middle Ages, a powerful noble family, the Grafen von Sulzbach (Counts of Sulzbach in English) had its seat in northeastern Bavaria at Burg Sulzbach. According to Deutsch Wikipedia (see Sulzbach (Adelsgeschlecht) in Deutsch Wikipedia.), the male line of this family died out in the year 1188 CE, but the title Graf von Sulzbach was later used by descendants of a female heir, whose line died out in 1305. The name Sulzbach appeared again from 1569 to 1808 in the branch of the Counts Palatine and Dukes of Palatinate-Sulzbach. Several members of these noble families are profiled in WikiTree. The relationship of these noble lines with modern people who bear this name is not known. The image in the project sticker is a coat of arms from the medieval Grafen von Sulzbach. The arms cannot be claimed by any modern Sulzbachs.
Sulzbach is also the name of several places in modern Germany.
The Namensverbreitungskarte (name distribution map) of the Society for Computer Genealogy shows a very light sprinkling of occurrences of the name Sulzbach in 1890, when the name was recorded in a few places in Hesse, near Frankfurt, in Nordrhein-Westphalen, and isolated occurrences in Saxony and Berlin. The name was substantially more abundant in 1996.
As of 29 October 2024 Geogen shows Sulzbach as an uncommon German surname with only 178 phonebook entries in Germany. Over half of these are in the German state of Hessen. The name has its highest prevalence in Odenwaldkreis in Hessen, where there are 25 phonebook entries for the name, corresponding to a density of 228 phonebook entries per million people. Two other jurisdictions in Hessen, Hochtaunuskreis and Wetteraukreis, also have 20 or more phonebook entries for the surname Sulzbach. All three of these jurisdictions are in the Regierungsbezirk (administrative region) of Darmstadt. There is a municipality of Sulzbach in this general area of Hessen. Genevolu shows only 11 phonebook entries for Sulzbach in 1942, with the highest prevalence (only about 0.2% of the local population) in Oberursel (in Hochtaunuskreis, Hessen) and Bad Kreuznach (Rheinland).
This information suggests that the Darmstadt region of Hessen might be a good place to look for the origins of yet-to-be-identified immigrant ancestors of Sulzbachs, Sultzbachs, Sultzbaughs, etc., of Pennsylvania and other parts of America. Some Sulzbachs in Brazil and the United States are traced to that area.
Global occurrence of the name:
- Findagrave (statistics as of 27 December 2023)
- FamilySearch (statistics as of 24 June 2022)
- 24,474 occurrences] of "Sultzbach" as a surname, including variant spellings
- 40,484 occurrences of "Sultzbaugh" as a surname, including variant spellings
How to Join
To join the Sulzbach Name Study, first browse our current research pages to see if there is a specific study ongoing that fits your interests. If so, feel free to add your name to the Membership list below, post a statement of your interest on the Membership list or the specific research team page, and then dive right in!
If a research page does not yet exist for your particular area of interest, please contact the Name Study Coordinator: Ellen Smith for assistance.
Once you are ready to go, you can also show your project affiliation with the ONS Member Sticker:
Research Pages
Membership
- Ellen Smith - One Name Study Coordinator; interested in Sultzbach and related names found among Palatine migrants to Pennsylvania and their descendants in North America
- Anne Sulzbach - interested in Sulzbach name found in and near Rockenberg and Oppershofen in Wetteraukreis, Hesse, and their descendants in the US, Germany, and Brazil
If you want to be notified when someone edits this page or adds a comment, please click here to be added to the trusted list.
Sulzbach Family Profiles in WikiTree
Links to surname genealogy pages:
- Sulzbach - This is the primary (possibly only) spelling found in Europe and South America. The children of Konrad Sulzbach emigrated from Hessen to Brasil in 1824.
- Sultzbach
- Sultzbaugh
- Sulsbaugh
- Sulzbacher
- Login to edit this profile and add images.
- Private Messages: Send a private message to the Profile Manager. (Best when privacy is an issue.)
- Public Comments: Login to post. (Best for messages specifically directed to those editing this profile. Limit 20 per day.)