Hegnauer

A name of origin (in German, a Herkunftsname). The sources that classify the name all treat it this way:

• The Igis citizens' corporation calls Hegnauer a name of origin from Hegnau, commune of Volketswil, district of Uster (Bürgergemeinde Landquart, quoted in Jacob Hegnauer).
• The Rätisches Namenbuch, the name book of Graubünden, lists the Igis Hegnauers with the family names that come from places in canton Zürich. It gives the source as "Hegnau, Dorf, Gde. Volketswil" (RN III, p. 565).
• The new Familiennamenatlas der Deutschschweiz puts Hegnauer on its map of old Swiss names of origin that come from place names ending in -au, beside Klingnauer, Lindauer and Schönauer (FDS, p. 756, map 348).
• The DFD, Germany's online dictionary of surnames, reports that Brechenmacher already named Hegnau (Volketswil) among the places that could give a name like Hegener (DFD "Hegener", citing Brechenmacher 1957, p. 678).

The -er ending. Swiss German makes the word for a person from a place by adding -er, and -erin for a woman. The Hegnau stories still call every villager a Hegnauer and every village woman a Hegnauerin (Hegnau). The medieval spellings end in -ower or -ouwer because ouwe was the Middle High German form of Au (ZSNB; Steuerbücher I).

From "of Hegnau" to "Hegnauer". The records show the change in progress:

• 1281–1282, a description. "C. dictus Hegenower" appears in 1281 (Zürcher Familiennamen, p. 85). In 1282 a man at Pfäfers is "Albertus dictus Ischener et dictus Hegnower" (RN III, p. 565). Dictus means "called". Albert had two bynames at once, so neither was yet a fixed family name.
• 1363–1413, the same man both ways. At Baden (Aargau):
  • Johannes von Hegnau was granted the tithe of Endingen and Würenlingen as a fief in 1363.
  • His son Wilhelm and Wilhelm's brother Jacob are von Hegnow in 1399.
  • In 1413 the same Wilhelm is Wilhelm Hegnöwer (Gessler documents, 1877: documents of 17 Mar 1399, 27 May 1399 and 22 Mar 1413, and the note on 1363). So "von Hegnau" and "Hegnauer" were two forms of one name, and the name had passed from father to son.
• 1366, a clerk writes the name in. In the Zürich city tax book, "Johans Hegenower" is written above a struck-out "sin koch" ("his cook"). The clerk replaced a description with a name (Steuerbücher I 172).
• 1437 and 1467–70, a surname even at Hegnau. "Hans Hegnoͧwer von Hegnoͧw" appears in 1437. Herman Hegnauer is taxed at Hegnau itself in 1467–70 (Steuerbücher II 500; VIII, register). A man living in Hegnau who is still called "the Hegnauer" carries a family name, no longer a description of where he came from.

When and where it became hereditary. The name was hereditary among the Baden gentry family by the 1360s. By 1450–70 it was a settled family name among several households in and around Zürich: Hegnau, Wangen, Hirslanden, Oberhusen and the city. Those households included brothers and cousins who all bore it (Steuerbücher VIII, register). In the church books it is fixed from the first entries: Fehraltorf in 1548 (index, to be checked), Elgg in 1553 and Volketswil in 1590 (the list of variants; Where did Jacob Hegnauer come from?).

What the lexicons say.

• HLS. The lords of Hegnau are recorded in the 13th century and were probably ministeriales (knights in a lord's service) of the counts of Rapperswil (HLS Volketswil).
• DHBS, entry "Hegnau, von, et Hegnauer". The Dictionnaire historique et biographique de la Suisse (1928, the French edition of the HBLS) treats "von Hegnau" and "Hegnauer" as one family (DHBS IV; the German HBLS IV, p. 112, has the same text):
  • ministeriales of the Habsburgs, recorded in the village from 1282;
  • citizens of Baden (Aargau) in the 14th century and of Zürich in the 15th;
  • found at Fehraltorf in the 17th century and at Uster castle in the 18th and 19th;
  • they still held some rights of jurisdiction over Hegnau in the 16th century, but could no longer keep up their rank. They left their castle before 1553, settled in the village and became farmers.
  • The entry adds that the Zürich and Baden Hagnauer and Hegnauer used the same first names and were confused early on.
  • Members named: Johannes (1331–1376), a squire and citizen of Baden; his son Wilhelm (1363–1413), who collected the Habsburg levy of 1388–89 in Aargau; Johannes, who became a citizen of Zürich on 22 Nov 1440; and Jakob, lord of the bailiwick of Hegnau in 1522, who was killed at Kappel in 1531 (the bailiwick passed to the Trüb family in 1535).
  • Their arms were gyronny of blue and gold, and the village of Hegnau still bears them (DHBS IV, "Hegnau").
  • The DHBS says plainly that it is not known whether this family is related to the Hegnauers of Elgg and Seengen.
• The Habsburg Urbar. Its editors call the Hegnauers "Austrian service people from Hegnau". They print the tax register of 1388–89 that Wilhelm Hegnauer, the collector, wrote himself (QSG 15/2, introduction and index).
• Sempach, 1386. The lists of those who fell on the Austrian side include a "Hans von Hegnow" or "der Hegnouwer". Some chronicles write him "Hans von Hagnow(e)", "Hagnouw", "Hagnauwer" or "Hagenauer" (Liebenau 1886; examples in section 6).

The two statements agree. The HLS's lords of the 13th century (Rapperswil ministeriales) and the DHBS's family (Habsburg ministeriales from 1282) are compatible: the HLS speaks of the 13th century and the DHBS of the Habsburg period after it.

Conclusion.

1. Same name, same place. The lords' family itself came to be called Hegnauer: Wilhelm von Hegnow of 1399 is Wilhelm Hegnöwer in 1413. So the surname was borne by the lesser nobility of Baden and Zürich in the 1300s and 1400s.
2. But the surname did not need the lords. Ordinary villagers were also called "von Hegnau": Bela in 1366, Fren Schultheissin in 1375 and Hans Gul in 1483 (Hegnauers in the Zürich tax books, 1366–1470; ZSNB). Anyone who left the village could become "the Hegnauer" in his new home. The man at Pfäfers "dictus Hegnower" in 1282 was plainly not one of the lords.
3. No record ties the study's lines to the noble family. The DHBS itself leaves the question open.
4. Two leads worth following.
   • (a) Volketswil. The DHBS says the family settled in Hegnau as farmers before 1553. The Volketswil register (Hegnau's parish) has Hegnauers from 1590, two years after it begins, until 1736. They are written Hegnauwer and Hegneüwer, and the study had wrongly filed them as "Schwyz" (jacob-origin note, item 4). Descent from the lords' family is the simplest explanation for a family called Hegnauer living in Hegnau itself. It is a hypothesis, not a finding.
   • (b) Fehraltorf and Baden. The DHBS puts the family at Fehraltorf in the 17th century, where the study has "Hegnorer" baptisms of 1548–1550 and a "Hagenauerin" in 1636. The Zürcher Familiennamen has a Magdalena Hegnauer of Mesikon (Fehraltorf) in 1628 (p. 174). The family's 14th-century home at Baden is the nearest recorded Hegnauer presence to Seengen before the church books begin (Baden is 29 km from Hegnau and about 18 km from Seengen). Both are possible routes, and both are unproven.

1. The c.1150 document. Read Schnyder's 1963 edition (ZUR, nos. 14 and 16) to confirm that the form belongs to this Hegnau. Hegenowa is also a medieval spelling of Hagenau in Alsace (Hegnau). The ZSNB's dating to "mid-12th century" and its context in Zürich sources make this Hegnau very likely.
2. Two books seen only in snippets.
   • Zürcher Familiennamen (1994), p. 85: its full entries for Hegnauer and Hegner, including its note on meaning and on what it means by "H. de Hagino" (1259). The place-name book says every old form of the village has e, so a Hagino would be unusual.
   • Rätisches Namenbuch III, p. 565: the full entry. Both are in Swiss libraries.
3. Reference works not read directly. Brechenmacher, Bahlow, Duden Familiennamen (Kohlheim) and Gottschald were known only through the DFD's citations; they are not online. The DFD has no article yet for Hegnauer, Hagenauer or Hegenauer: its Hagener article refers to a "Hagenauer 1" that has not been published. The Idiotikon's surname portal, familiennamen.ch, has citizenship data for Hegnauer but no etymology article.
4. Hegner. Whether the Winterthur Hegner are an early branch of the Elgg Hegnauers, which would make "Hegner" partly the same name, or a family from Hegi. The HLS says "Hegi–Elgg area" but gives spellings with -ow-, which point to -au.
5. The DHBS's family history (a castle left before 1553; Fehraltorf in the 17th century; Uster castle in the 18th and 19th) is 1920s work that cites Merz, the Zürich city books and the anniversary book of Uster. It should be checked against the Volketswil and Fehraltorf registers before anyone relies on it.
6. Igis: the test in section 6, and the register images already listed in the jacob-origin note.
7. Y-DNA: one direct male-line Hegnauer from each of Elgg or Uster, Seengen and Igis. This is the only test of "one ancestor or several".