Abstract: Germanium (Ge) is a promising candidate material for realising efficient light emission (and detection), combined with the silicon waveguide based photonic integrated circuit (PIC), as part of a fully CMOS compatible solution for applications in telecommunications, sensing and nonlinear and quantum photonics. In recent years there have been a number of proposed approaches to engineering the Ge band structure to achieve this goal; including alloying with Tin (Sn), and by combining n-type doping with strain engineering, some of which have been shown to result in lasing in the near- to mid-IR. The application of (even relatively low levels) of, specifically, tensile strain, embedded within suspended microstructures is one of the most effective approaches for converting the band structure from indirect to direct. Here, we demonstrate a series of such microstructures, fabricated from Ge on silicon-on-insulator (Ge-SOI) substrates. We compare strain mapping of these structures deduced from finite element simulations, using COMSOL, with both Raman scattering and (laboratory-based) high angular resolution electron backscatter diffraction (HR-EBSD), using a SEM. The latter, in particular, provides an unambiguous measure of strain on the micron-scale, mitigating the need for obtaining absolute strain measurement via e.g., micro-XRD, which is typically only available at larg(er)-scale synchrotron facilities.