hegnauer.family
hegnauer.family

The name

The Hegnauer Name Study: about the project

· 12 min read · 7 people named

Study category • Hegnauer Genealogy Hub • Research pages • How to join • G2G: HEGNAUER

{| class="wikitable" style="width:300px; font-size:90%; margin:0;" |+ Hegnauer at a glance |- ! Meaning | "person from Hegnau" |- ! Home of the name | Hegnau, Volketswil, canton Zürich (recorded about 1150) |- ! Earliest bearer found | Johans Hegenower, Zürich, 1366 |- ! Old Swiss communities | Elgg and Uster (Zürich); Igis (Graubünden) |- ! Records indexed | 4,072 (September 2026) |- ! WikiTree profiles | 32 (26 September 2026) |- ! Y-DNA | No results yet. Testers wanted |- ! Coordinator | Living Hegnauer |}

Welcome to the Hegnauer Name Study! This is a collaborative, worldwide study of the Hegnauer surname and its variants. A one-name study is not limited to one family. It sets out to collect every occurrence of the name in the records, to reconstruct the families behind those records, and to work out how, and whether, the different Hegnauer families connect. Descendants, researchers and anyone with records to share are warmly invited to join the study.

Also see the research pages and the surname variants.

The Name

Hegnau, the village that gave the Hegnauers their name, from the air on 26 April 1946. Photo: Werner Friedli, ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Hegnauer is a toponymic surname, one taken from a place. It means "a person from Hegnau". Hegnau is a village, now part of the municipality of Volketswil, in the Glatt valley between Zürich and Uster. It is first recorded about 1150 as Hegenowa.1 According to the Zürich place-name book, the second part of the name is the Old High German ouwa, "land beside water; island". The first part is most likely a man's name, Hagino or Hego. Hegnau was thus "Hagino's land by the water".1 The popular explanation from Hag, "hedge", is not the one the place-name scholars give.

An early medieval cemetery found at Hegnau points to Alemannic settlement there. Hegnau belonged to the lordship of Greifensee and passed with it to the city of Zürich in 1402.2 In the 13th century a family of lords named after the village, "those of Hegnau", were probably ministeriales of the Counts of Rapperswil: knights and officials in a lord's service.2 A "Johannes de Hegnowe" appears in a Zürich document of 1282, but the record does not say whether he belonged to the lords' family.1 In the old records, however, von Hegnau ("of Hegnau") also describes ordinary people from the village who had other surnames, such as "Hans Gul von Hegnau" in 1483.1 A von Hegnau in a record is therefore not necessarily a Hegnauer.

The surname itself, with the -er ending that means "a person from", first appears in the tax book of the city of Zürich for 1366. There "Johans Hegenower" is listed in the Neumarkt quarter; the clerk first wrote "his cook" and then replaced it with the name. That same year a "Hegnöwer" was taxed in the Rennweg quarter. From 1372 to 1375 a woman known as "the Hegnöwerin", the sister of Cuni Schönöwert, lived in the Linden quarter.3 In 1437 the tax registers name "Hans Hegnoͧwer von Hegnoͧw", Hans Hegnauer of Hegnau.1 By 1467–1470 there were Hegnauer households in the city, at Hirslanden, at Oberhusen, at Wangen and at Hegnau itself, where Herman Hegnauer lived with his wife and son Wilhelm.3 These are the earliest bearers of the name the study has found. No descent from the medieval lords of Hegnau has been shown for any Hegnauer family. Most people with a place-derived surname descend from ordinary villagers who moved away and were called after their old home.

Hegnauer Timeline

DateEvent
about 1150Hegnau is first recorded, as Hegenowa.1
13th centuryThe lords of Hegnau are probably ministeriales of the Counts of Rapperswil.2
1402Hegnau passes to the city of Zürich with the lordship of Greifensee.2
1366"Johans Hegenower" is listed in the Zürich city tax book, the earliest known bearer of the surname. A "Hegnöwer" is also taxed that year.3
1437"Hans Hegnoͧwer von Hegnoͧw" is listed in the Zürich tax registers.1
1467–1470Hegnauer households are taxed in Zürich and at Hirslanden, Oberhusen, Wangen and Hegnau itself.3
1627–1647The earliest entries in the study's index are at Gerlingen, Württemberg (1627), Schwyz (1631), Schongau, Lucerne (1643) and Uster (1647).4
1659First Hegnauer record at Elgg, canton Zürich, later the largest Swiss cluster.4
1744First Hegnauer record at Igis, canton Graubünden.4
1777Christian Hegnauer marries Ursula Radig at Igis. They are the ancestors of the Missouri family.5
1856Luzius Hegnauer's family sails from Le Havre on the ship Chace and lands at New York on 29 September.6
1857First Hegnauer record at Rochester, New York, later the largest American cluster.4
1861–1864Luzius and his sons Leonhard and John serve in the Union army.7
1869Leonhard Hegnauer settles in Bates County, Missouri, the family's home for the next generation.6
1872Peter Hegnauer of Igis (born 1811) emigrates to America.8
1924Adolf Georg Hegnauer, living in London, gives up his Igis citizenship. The Hegnauer citizen family of Igis has since died out.8

Where the Name Is Found

As of September 2026 the study has indexed 4,072 occurrences of the name in historical records, from 1627 to the present. Most come from FamilySearch's historical records, with more from Ancestry, Find a Grave, military files and newspapers. The counts are records, not people: one person may appear many times.4

  • Switzerland (about 1,460 records). The name clusters in two old communities: Elgg in canton Zürich (327 records, from 1659) and Igis in canton Graubünden (272 records, from 1744). A smaller group lived at Uster, next to Hegnau itself. In the 19th century the name spread to the Swiss cities.
  • United States (about 1,230 records). The main clusters are Rochester and Monroe County, New York (from 1857); Missouri (Gasconade and Bates counties, from 1859); Minnesota; Canton, Ohio; Washington state; and Newark, New Jersey.
  • Germany (about 70 records), mainly in Baden (Freiburg), Württemberg and Bavaria (Nuremberg). A few more records come from Britain, Canada and France.

See Distribution and Branches for the detail.

The Igis Branch

Igis, Graubünden, from the air on 1 September 1947. The Reformed church and churchyard are at lower right. Photo: Werner Friedli, ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The best-researched family so far is the Igis branch. In the Igis church registers it goes back through Jakob Hegnauer (1783–1858) and his wife Christina Pleisch to Jakob's parents, Christian Hegnauer and Ursula Radig, who married in 1777.5 In August 1856 Jakob's son Luzius Hegnauer left Igis with his wife Anna Margreth Bernet and their five children. They sailed from Le Havre on the American ship Chace and landed at New York on 29 September 1856.6 They settled among other Swiss families in Gasconade County, Missouri. Within five years Luzius and his sons John and Leonhard were serving in the Union army.7 Their descendants spread from Bates County, Missouri, to Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon and California.

Goals

  • Collect and cite every record of the Hegnauer name and its variants, in every country and period.
  • Reconstruct the Swiss families parish by parish, starting with Elgg and Igis.
  • Test whether the Igis Hegnauers descend from the Zürich-area families, who lived about 90 km away near Hegnau, or took the name independently. The first Igis record found so far is from 1744.
  • Trace every emigrant family and identify which American and German clusters belong to which Swiss family. Only the Missouri–Minnesota–Washington family is so far proven to come from Igis.
  • Trace the families of the medieval tax books (1366–1470) forward toward the parish registers of the 1500s and 1600s, and look for any documented link with the medieval lords of Hegnau. The sources to search include:
    • the tax registers and charters in the Staatsarchiv Zürich, and the records of Rüti Abbey and the Fraumünster;
    • the parish books and Bürgerbücher (citizens' registers) of Zürich, Greifensee, Uster and Igis;
    • Swiss local chronicles and newspapers.
  • Build Y-DNA evidence to compare the branches.
  • Give every Hegnauer profile on WikiTree good sources and a narrative biography, in step with the evidence.

Research Standards

  • Every fact on a study profile carries an inline source. Where records conflict, the profile says so in its Research Notes rather than silently choosing one.
  • A person is linked to a record only when at least two identifiers agree, such as name, age, place, parents or spouse. Uncertain matches are recorded as leads, not facts.
  • For military service, what a unit did is not treated as evidence of what one man did. A man is placed at an event only when his own record puts him there.
  • No living person is added to a public page or profile by the study.

Hegnauer Name Study Category

Profiles that belong to the study carry the category <nowiki></nowiki>. This applies to everyone who bore the name by birth or marriage, including variant spellings. If you manage a Hegnauer profile, please add the category to it. The category page lists every profile and page in the study.

Resources

How to Join

To join the Hegnauer Name Study, first browse the research pages to see whether one fits your interests. If it does, add your name to the membership list, leave an introductory comment on that page, and dive in. Help of every kind is welcome: records and photographs, transcription and translation of Swiss church registers, family stories, and Y-DNA testing by Hegnauer men.

If there is no page yet for your part of the family, or you have questions, please contact the Name Study Coordinator: Living Hegnauer, a descendant of Jakob Hegnauer (1783–1858) of Igis, through WikiTree private messaging.

Please add HEGNAUER to your followed tags to see G2G discussions about the name.

Research Pages

Membership

  • Living Hegnauer: coordinator. Interests: the Igis branch and its descendants in Missouri, Minnesota and Washington; the Swiss origins of the name.

What You Can Do

You can help whether or not you are a member of the study:

  • Add <nowiki></nowiki> to any Hegnauer profile you manage.
  • Add sources and a biography to a Hegnauer profile, or connect an unconnected one to its family.
  • Share records, letters, photographs or family stories. Please leave a comment on the relevant page.
  • Help read and translate Swiss church registers, which are written in old German script.
  • If you are a Hegnauer man, consider taking a Y-DNA test (see DNA).

Task List

  • <s>Rebuild the Igis emigrant family and three later generations on WikiTree with full sources.</s> Done in September 2026.
  • Place the unconnected Hegnauer profiles on WikiTree in their families (see Distribution and Branches).
  • Reconstruct the Rochester, New York, family, the largest American cluster.
  • Reconstruct the Canton, Ohio, and Newark, New Jersey, families.
  • Review the 45 Elgg family groups reconstructed from the church-register index.
  • Look up the Hegnauer places of citizenship in the Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz.
  • Order the Civil War pension files of Luzius and Leonhard Hegnauer from the National Archives.
  • Find Y-DNA testers from the Igis and the Elgg families.

Brick Walls

If you can break down any of these, please leave a comment below.

DNA

No Hegnauer Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA result is yet known to the study. The surname passes from father to son, and so does the Y chromosome. A Y-DNA test of a man descended in the direct male line from each old Hegnauer family is therefore the best way to learn whether the Igis, Elgg and Uster families share a common ancestor. If you are a Hegnauer man who has tested (FamilyTreeDNA Y-37 or higher, or Y-700), or who would be willing to, please contact the coordinator, and add your result to your WikiTree DNA page.

Hegnauer is a rare name, and most variant spellings in the records are clerks' or indexers' attempts at it. A spelling is listed here only when a record shows it.

SpellingWhere it appearsNotes
HegnauerSwiss church registers; most American and German recordsThe standard form.
Hegenower, Hegnöwer, Hegnoͧwer, HegnowerZürich tax books, 1366–1470 ("Johans Hegenower", 1366; "Hans Hegnoͧwer", 1437)3The earliest forms of the surname. The feminine is Hegnöwerin.
Hegnawer, HegnawerinA Zürich parish register of 1680 ("Hegnawerin")1; FamilySearch indexesAn older spelling. -in is the German feminine ending.
von Hegnau, de HegnoweZürich charters and tax registers, 1282–15041"Of Hegnau". Used for the medieval lords and also for ordinary people from the village with other surnames.
Hegemann / HegemanThe ship Chace passenger list, New York, 1856 (the whole family indexed as "Hegemann"); Luzius's first Civil War muster roll, 1861 ("Lucius Hegeman")Clerks' spellings. Hegemann is also a separate German surname, so not every Hegemann is a Hegnauer.
Hegenauer, Hecknauer, Hagenauer, HagemaurJohn Hegnauer's Civil War service records, 5th and 4th Missouri CavalryArmy clerks' spellings of one man's name.
HagnauerLeonhard Hegnauer's marriage, Madison County, Illinois, 1866; John Hegnauer in the 1900 census, Webb City, Missouri; Christian Hegnauer ("C. Hagnauer") in Marion County, Oregon, court records, 1893A common American spelling of the name. A separate Hagnauer family also lived at Highland, Illinois, from 1833.
Heyrauer, Hageneur, HeagnorU.S. census of 1870, veterans schedule of 1890 and other American records of the Igis familyPhonetic spellings by census takers and clerks.
HegnaurFind a Grave indexTranscription.
Hegnäuer, Hegnaùer, Hegnaver, HegnanerFamilySearch indexesTranscription errors; check the images.

Hegnow and Hegnaw appear as spellings of the village (for example Hegnow in 1470, 1548 and 1566), but they have not yet been found as surnames.1 Hagenauer is also a separate surname, from Hagenau (Haguenau) in Alsace, so a Hagenauer record belongs to the study only when other evidence ties it to a Hegnauer.

Acknowledgements

This page was set up by the WikiTree One Name Studies Project (One Name Studies WikiTree). Thanks to the Bürgergemeinde Landquart, the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz and the Zürcher Siedlungsnamenbuch, whose published work is cited here.

Sources

Notes

  1. Zürcher Siedlungsnamenbuch, entry "Hegnau", ortsnamen.ch (viewed 26 September 2026): interpretation, and dated attestations from about 1150 ("Hegenowa"), 1282 ("Johannes de Hegnowe"), 1437 ("Hans Hegnoͧwer von Hegnoͧw", Die Steuerbücher von Stadt und Landschaft Zürich, vol. II, p. 500) and 1680 ("Hegnawerin", Staatsarchiv Zürich E III 60.1). ↩
  2. Ueli Müller, "Volketswil", Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS), version of 2012: "diejenigen von Hegnau waren vermutlich Ministerialen der Grafen von Rapperswil"; "Hegnau kam 1402 mit der Herrschaft Greifensee an die Stadt Zürich". ↩
  3. Die Steuerbücher von Stadt und Landschaft Zürich des XIV. und XV. Jahrhunderts (Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich, 1918–1958): vol. I (1357–1376), p. 172, no. 194a, Neumarkt 1366, "Johans Hegenower", and p. 200, Rennweg 1366, "Hegnöwer"; pp. 338, 388, 440, Linden 1372–75, "Hegnöwerin", sister of Cuni Schönöwert (Internet Archive); vol. VIII, register to vols. III–VII (1450–1470), entry "Hegnauer" (Internet Archive). ↩
  4. Hegnauer One-Name Study, occurrence index (unpublished database kept by the study coordinator), as of 26 September 2026. Index entries not yet checked against the register images. ↩
  5. See Switzerland: Origins and Parishes for the church-register citations. ↩
  6. See Igis to Missouri, 1856 for the passenger list and newspaper citations. ↩
  7. See The Hegnauers in the Civil War for the service records. ↩
  8. Bürgergemeinde Landquart, "Die Igiser Bürgergeschlechter", entry Hegnauer (viewed 26 September 2026), drawn from the Igis Bürgerregister. ↩

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