Guild of One-Name Studies
One-name studies, Genealogy
Study: Machula
Variants: Maciulaitis, Maczula, Maczullatis, Matschulat, Matschulatis
Category: 1 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is in its early stages.
Website: machula.org/
DNA website: www.familytreedna.com/public/machula/
Contact: Mr Nathan Machula
The Machula One-Name Study goals are:
Machula is probably a Sudovian (Yotvingian), Old Prussian, or possibly Lithuanian surname. These are all Baltic languages, but the former two are long extinct. Lithuanian is the closest living relative.
The ending -atis or -itis is a Baltic patronymic suffix meaning 'son of.' The meaning of the surname Machula, with its original suffix attached, i.e. Maczullatis or Matschulatis, is probably 'son of Matthew.' Therefore, it is possible the surname had multiple original forebears who were not related.
Machula is a relatively rare surname. Among almost 270,000 surnames in the UK in 2002, there were no Machulas (although at least one family has immigrated since then, based on BMD records).
In the 2010 US Census, there were fewer than 100 people with the surname Machula.
I have not yet found reliable surname indexes for other countries.