Brandt

At a young age, and then several times since from several sources, I was taught that the origin of Brandt was an older Germanic word that meant "land cleared by fire" and was given to a group of people, or family that had come from the Northeast and ended up conquering the marauders in the lower Western region of what is now Germany/Black Forest area that had been harassing and pillaging the Germans. They would invade and pillage, then scatter into the high mountains. The "Brandt family" went into those mountains and conquered the marauders by burning them out. The Brandt crest even attests to this. I was always taught that our family was from the Black Forest region of Germany but that we originated from out of the Northeast. We have not able to detail my family tree that far back due to records being burnt during the middle ages. My DNA results showed that my family originated from the Northeastern region just out of Germany. [noted -ed]