Biesterfeld

This German surname is locational, and originates from a place called "Bisterfeld", or perhaps a lost village situated on dry ground. The meaning of the name is "the open area of ground (feld), surrounded by swamp (biester)", and the name is well recorded in Germany for four hundred years. Locational surnames are "from" names. That is to say that they are given to people usually after they leave their original home villages, and move elsewhere. "Elsewhere" could be the next village, or the capital city, but eitherway it was then, and it often remains so in the 20th century, that the easiest form of identification is to call a person by the name of the place from where they originated. In this case the first known recording that we have in the German records is that of Johan Bisterfeld of Lippe, in 1619, whilst other recordings include Caspar Bisterfeld, a witness at Berleburg Stadt, Westfalen, on August 20th 1730, and August Biesterfeld, christened at Dusseldorf, Rheinland, on October 3rd 1863.