Genealogy Chat

My family tree has been traced back to the 16 th century. Can anyone please tell me if there is a reliable way of trying to find out the origins of family surnames ?

Regards Anne

I usually Google, you can try

http://www.surnamedb.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/get_started/surnames_01.shtml

I have done the usual Google thing but have been informed tat some sites are not altogether reliable ----- so many thanks for the two new ones

care to give us the name?

The name is Marrison

Last name: Marrison

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This interesting French name has two possible sources of origin, the first being that it is the patronymic (son of) form of Marie a popular medieval given name as it is the name of the mother of Christ. It derives from the Aramaic 'Maryam' or Hebrew 'Miryam' and perhaps means wished-for-child, or alternatively a compound of 'mar', drop and 'yam', sea - in Latin 'stella maris', star of the sea. However it is possible that it is the patronymic of a locational name Marris, which derives from the Olde French 'marais' a marsh. Naturally the name predominates in the fen country. Two recordings of weddings in London are between one Thomas Marison and Hannah Atkinson at St. Leonard's, Shoreditch on 8th October 1821, and Mary Marrison and Joseph Swain at St. Michael's, Bassishaw on 28th July 1828. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard de Maris, which was dated 1086, Domesday Book of Buckinghamshire, during the reign of King William I, The Conqueror, 1066 - 1087. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Marrison#ixzz3navEBhjt

Thank you very much for the information Anne

Just used the surnamedb link and found that one of the names of my ancestors might come from Japan.
However another one is supposed to come from Suffolk but the spelling is rather different. Other details show that in the U.S 78% of people with this name are Hispanic. My research shows that there is a place in Spain with this name spelt the same way as my surname.

So I reckon that the research is incomplete. - but a lot better than nothing .
All rather interesting.
Thank R. Rose.

Well I'm not sure about this, but it's interesting.

I knew my Irish Keating surname dates back to the 12thC, but this snippet is a new one on me.

"Mona Lisa Gherardini The Keatings sprang from a house whose beginnings, so say the legends, go back to the days of /troy. Definite records take us back well over a thousand years, and suppose that the family was indigenous to Italy, being either E/truscan or Roman. The Gherardini, the Ancestral family of the Keatings, Fitzgeralds, Fitzmaurices, Redmonds, Carews, and many other prominent Irish families, were one of the seigniorial families that fell when the Republic of Florence was founded."

Smiles enigmatically lol :-)

Isn't there a lot of gumph. When it comes down to " brass tax " the origins of surnames cannot really be researched to anyone's real satisfaction. It's been a very interesting "conversation " though. It looks like the "pinch off salt " has to taken big time . Have enjoyed it

Ps this all came about because distant relatives from the U.S. and Aus were asking questions.