Author Topic: Discover the meaning and history of your surname  (Read 1015 times)

Bubbles

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Brownie

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Re: Discover the meaning and history of your surname
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2016, 07:40:22 PM »
Looks as though I'm already a member of that site though I don't know why, but anyway I have said I forgot my password and will be sent a link to change it.  Hope that doesn't mean I'll be receiving endless junky emails.

I doubt Ancestry will be able to tell me much of interest, quite honestly.

Later:  I logged in.  As I thought, nothing much.  I knew the meaning of my surname already.  In order to search for anyone you have to pay and much as I enjoy spending money, I'm not sufficiently interested to dole out cash to these people.
I'm probably the wrong person to even be looking at this, I know some are really into family trees and all that but I can't see the point.  Maybe it is something to do with me being an adopted child, I don't know.

However:  my married name: Occupational name for a bird-catcher.  Well, my husband caught a nice 'bird' once, early nineteen seventies!

My birth name (very common): English, Scottish, and Irish: generally a nickname referring to the color of the hair or complexion, Middle English br(o)un, from Old English brun or Old French brun. This word is occasionally found in Old English and Old Norse as a personal name or byname. Brun- was also a Germanic name-forming element. Some instances of Old English Brun as a personal name may therefore be short forms of compound names such as Brungar, Brunwine, etc. As a Scottish and Irish name, it sometimes represents a translation of Gaelic Donn. As an American family name, it has absorbed numerous surnames from other languages with the same meaning.

Can't find anything for the surname I grew up with (parents' surname)!  It is a very unusual name and my son uses it professionally (which I object to, that's a different story).  I can research occupations and all that on Ancestry but no info on origin of name.

Over to others I think -
« Last Edit: August 30, 2016, 01:23:52 AM by Brownie »
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Hope

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Re: Discover the meaning and history of your surname
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2016, 07:46:51 AM »
I enjoy looking though some of these sites - if only to discover mistakes!!  Over the last 120 years or so, several members of my family have delved in the family's history, and we now have a pretty extensive family tree.  At the last count the family had been traced back to Bruges in the 800s AD.  We even have a family Historical Society and website!!  Whilst thre is still one of my semi-distant cousins working on taking it further bck still, the days of the really devoted delvers seem to have come to an end for a while.

That said, I have no idea what our surname means (even though there are 2 villages in Shropshire with our name).  Even then, the name has evolved over time.  The original gent was called Thomas de Bouler.
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floo

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Re: Discover the meaning and history of your surname
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2016, 08:11:19 AM »
My maiden name is French and refers to a place in France, whereas my married name refers to a place in Wales!

Harrowby Hall

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Re: Discover the meaning and history of your surname
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2016, 08:39:57 AM »
According to the Ancestry website, my surname is one which is firmly rooted in Lancashire.

I have traced my paternal back to 1600 and my family is lived entirely in Nottingham (where I was born) and the surrounding area (Nottinghamshire/Leicestershire border).
« Last Edit: August 29, 2016, 02:05:37 PM by Harrowby Hall »
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ippy

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Re: Discover the meaning and history of your surname
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2016, 12:01:54 PM »
I enjoy looking though some of these sites - if only to discover mistakes!!  Over the last 120 years or so, several members of my family have delved in the family's history, and we now have a pretty extensive family tree.  At the last count the family had been traced back to Bruges in the 800s AD.  We even have a family Historical Society and website!!  Whilst thre is still one of my semi-distant cousins working on taking it further bck still, the days of the really devoted delvers seem to have come to an end for a while.

That said, I have no idea what our surname means (even though there are 2 villages in Shropshire with our name).  Even then, the name has evolved over time.  The original gent was called Thomas de Bouler.

Hope you might well be a relative of mine, how lucky for you, my family are from Belgium about 200 years ago, my family name is very Flemish.

I found out my family name means, 'on the slope by the lime tree' and no I'm not making any of this up.

Cousin Hope, well I never?

ippy