Total Records: 6
Origin of Leigh, Meaning of Leigh
Origin: The origin of the name came from England. My family came from around the Suffolk and Lancashire area.
Surnames: Sleight
Submitted by: Julie Hendrix |
Origin of Leigh, Meaning of Leigh
Origin: Susanna Leigh b.1781,James Leigh Jr. b.1751,James Leigh Sr. b.1723,George Leigh Jr. b.1692 Wedmore, Somerset County, England
Surnames: Leigh
Submitted by: E.H. Gill |
Origin of Leigh, Meaning of Leigh
Origin: Information sought on Leighs of Bowden and Partington abt 1750
Surnames: Leigh
Submitted by: Walter Jakeman |
Origin of Leigh, Meaning of Leigh
Origin: The first Lee to set foot on American soil was Henry Leigh (or Lay). He was a settler in Jamestown. The Lee's stayed in Virginia, Robert E. Lee is an example. Some of the Lee's eventually moved to the Carolinas and Georgia. A branch of them moved to Helotes, Texas (suburb of San Antonio).
Surnames: Lee, Leigh, Lay
Submitted by: Lizzie |
Origin of Leigh, Meaning of Leigh
Origin: Those bearing the name of Ruggles in the United States, nearly all are descended from the English Suffolk and. Essex family of that name, which family was seated in those counties in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The only exceptions are believed to be those persons who trace their lineage back to an ancestor who came from France, and. who bore the name of Bugles. Alfred Ruggles of Hanover, Pennsylvania, who claimed origin from this stock, in 1791 spelled. his name with the double g, as have all of his descendants from that time.
This record will deal with the English family, which is now virtually transplanted to America, the branch extant in England bearing now an additional surname, hyphenated with that of Ruggles.
John Sydney Hawkins, son of Sir John Hawkins, wrote a life of George Ruggles, the famous scholar and dramatic author of the time of Ding James I, which was published in London in 1787. Ruggles had written a play in Latin, which had been performed before the king at Cambridge in 1614, and of this drama Hawkins had prepared a carefully edited edition, and bound it together with the biography of its author. In this volume is made the statement that the Essex and Suffolk family of Ruggles is a branch of the very ancient Staffordshire house of Ruggeley, or De Ruggeley; that this branch removed to Warwickshire, thence to Lincolnshire, and from there to Suffolk. He is of the opinion that the name is derived from the town of Ruggeley, or Rugeley, in Staffordshire, and that it was there that they were first settled.
It is well known that surnames were not in general use until after the Norman Conquest, and Camden says ("Remains," ed. 1674) that ,all names that have the Latin prefix, De, were borrowed from places.
The name, Ruggeley, is by Hawkins affirmed to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, and from two words signifying Rugged Land, which, as applied to a place, might very properly refer to the rude and. uncultivated state in which, at the time it was named, that town was believed to have been.
The very earliest trace of the family is to be found in Shaw's " Antiquities of Staffordshire," wherein we are told that one Robert de Ruggele lived. in the time of Henry III, or in the year 1220. Of this family Sir William Dugdale declares (" Antiquities of Warwickshire "): " They were gentlemen of very good note, for so early as the twenty-sixth year of the reign of King. Edward 1, viz., A. D. 1298, Z find William de Ruggele, de comitatu Staffordiae, recorded with an encomium for having performed faithful service to the king in his army then in Flanders; and in the tenth, thirteenth and fourteenth of Edward DI, mention is made of Simon de Ruggeley, who was then sheriff of the counties of Salop and Stafford," and in " Antiquities of Staffordshire " we learn that at this time Humphrey de Ruggeley was owner of Hawksbeard.
Nicholas Ruggeley, of Hawksbeard, Dugdale further informs us, was appointed to the Rangership of Sutton Chase, in Warwickshire, in the second year of Henry IV, and that he continued in that command until the tenth of Henry VI. About 1423 he purchased the manor of Claptham in Dunton (or Downton—afterwards called Downton-Ruggeley), in that county, and removed there; and in 1432 his name occurs among the knights and esquires who made oath for the observance of the articles concluded on, in the Parliament then held. We discover in Fuller's " Worthies of Leicestershire" that he was also sheriff of Warwick and Leicester in 1428.
From Warwickshire a branch of this family settled in Lincolnshire, at a place called Holton Holgate, and although the. immediate ancestor of the Essex and Suffolk families very soon removed to the latter county, descendants of the name remained in Holton Holgate as late as 1674.
It was in the early part of the sixteenth century that this family appeared in Suffolk, and Thomas Ruggles, of Sudbury, Suffolk, whose bears date June 21, 1547 (see "Burke's General Armory"), bore these:—
Arms—Argent, between three roses a chevron gales.
Crest—A tower or, with a beacon flaming at the top proper, and transpierced with four arrows in saltire, points downward, argent.
Motto—STRUGGLE.
which arms are identical with those of the Staffordshire family of Ruggeley. These bearings are also found. recorded in Berry's " Encyclopaedia of Heraldry," under the names both of Ruggeley and of Ruggles.
Thomas Ruggles, great-grandson of Thomas Ruggles, of Sudbury, came from Nasing, Essex, to Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1637. His younger brother, John, had come out to New England, and settled in Roxbury two years before.
John Ruggles of Boston had preceded these, having come in the fleet with Governor Winthrop in 1630, as had Jeffrey Ruggles, who also settled in Boston. George Ruggles, of the same place, was there as early as 1632. He afterwards removed to Braintree, where his branch of the family resided for five generations. Samuel Ruggles also was in Boston at an early date, though the precise time cannot be determined.
John of Boston was a cousin of Thomas of Roxbury, and also of Jeffrey of Boston. The ancestry of George is not exactly known, nor that of Samuel, but they were undoubtedly near relatives of the others.
John and Jeffrey of Boston left no male descendants, and it is therefore believed that these four— Thomas and John of Roxbury, George of Boston and Braintree, and Samuel of Boston—were the ancestors of all in America having the family name today, and who are descended from the English family.
The family name has undergone considerable change in six hundred years: first De Ruggele, then successively De Ruggeley, Ruggeley, Ruggelay, Rugeley, Ruggleigh, Rogyll, Rogle, Rugle, Rugles, Ruggle, and lastly Ruggles. Nor is it in England alone that these variations in spelling are to be found, quite as many appearing in the early Roxbury and Boston records as in those of Suffolk, Essex and Stafford.
Surnames: De Ruggele, De Ruggeley, Ruggeley, Ruggelay, Rugeley, Ruggleigh, Rogyll, Rogle, Rugle, Rugles, Ruggle, Ruggles
Submitted by: |
Origin of Leigh, Meaning of Leigh
Origin: The English name Hurley and Earle are thought originate from the Manor of Erley sometimes written as Erlegh, Erleigh, Earley or Hurley, in the hundred of Sonning in Berkshire. Indeed, there are so many spelling variations as to render Hurley a name impossible to spell incorrectly. In its principal variants it consists of two syllables, Er and L�, the exact spelling and pronunciation of which varied from locality to locality, with dialect and over time. Some variants in spelling include Urly, Hearley, Herlihey, Hordle and even Yearsley, with more recent evolutions tending to shorten the name, primarily to Earl and Hurl.
In the mid 11th century, Hurley, and several Manors around, were held by virtue of his service by the high ranking Saxon noble, �sgar, the Master of Horse (or Marshall) to the King, Edward the Confessor. Recorded as �Herlei� in the Doomsday book of 1086, the manor was then amongst many estates held by Geoffrey de Mandeville, a famous soldier who had been with William the Conqueror at Hastings in 1066.
The manor comprised 14 hides less one virgate, totalling about 1,650 acres of cultivatable land, With land for 18 ploughs, a church, two fisheries, 20 acres of meadow, woodland for 5 pigs (piggeries), and a mill rendering 20 shillings, the whole then being worth �12. In demesne (the lord�s private lands) there were 4 ploughs (up to 32 oxen, each plough requiring 2 teams of 4 oxen). The population consisted of 25 villans and 12 cottars with 15 ploughs (up to 180 oxen), and 10 slaves. Villans were tenant farmers or smallholders, who occupied about 30 acres each in payment for weekday labour on the Lords lands. Cottars were free men, usually the local craftsmen, such as the smith, the carpenter or the potter, and perhaps in this manor, the �plough-wright�. The number of people identified, are thought to be heads of households, and indicate a total population of about 200 people. The numbers of ploughs and dearth of grazing animals informs us that the land was primary given over to the cultivation of crops.
The exact origin of old names is difficult to discern. Some contend that the name Erley was derived from an abbreviation of the Old Saxon �Erne� meaning eagle and �ley� meaning wood or clearing, to give the name �Eaglewood�. �Ley� or �lea� is a widely used name suffix in the Saxon hundreds, and is usually interpreted as �meadow�, �open land� or �field�. It derives from the practice of allowing land to lay fallow in early crop rotation practice. Such land would be �ley-lond�. In times past, small birds of prey such as kestrels and kites would be common, hovering over open cultivated land in search of voles and harvest mice. There being few words at that time to differentiate between a kite and a true eagle, the name could have been derived from �Eagle-meadow�. This was likely how the name �Ernley� originated, but �Erley�? Given the nature of the physical situation of Hurley being valley bottom land and not a natural habitat for large birds of prey, the name Erley, likely comes from the Old Saxon �Er� meaning an �Ear� but also meaning an �Ear of Corn�. �Ering lond� meant �corn land� or �plough land�. �Erian� meant to plough. So the name Erley more likely means �Cornfield�, a suitable name for this area of fertile arable land.
Other names local to the village of Hurley are �Mill Lane�, �Shepards Lane� and �Honey Lane�, indicate it to have long been a place of good farming. Hurley Manor known as �La Halle� in 1234, was disposed of in 1362 to Hurley Priory. With the dissolution, Hurley and its charters were conveyed to Westminster Abbey. Richard Leighton, who surveyed the priory for Henry VIII, was impressed by the high standard of farming in the area. The Manor, built over by a substantive stately home in subsequent years and now named Halls Place, is home to Berkshire College of Agriculture.
Surnames: Erleigh Erlegh Erle Earle Earley Early Earl Hurley
Submitted by: Peter Hurley |
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