Family Names

I’ve written a few times before about the origin of family names. This time, I’d like to first explore some of the various “rules” and timing of family names in general. Then I’ll look at the four family names coming from my parents and my wife’s parents. Finally, I have some new information about my wife’s maiden name (i.e., her father’s family name - VanDeCar).

 

Surnames

There is a great article in Wikipedia about surnames (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surname). It gets into a lot of detail which I’ll not attempt to replicate here. But there are a few types of surnames that are involved in the family history below that I’d like to refer to.

Patronymic surnames – These are some of the oldest and most common type of surnames where the surname is based on the name of one’s father. There are examples in many different countries/cultures, such as the Scandinavian (Peterson = son of Peter), Scottish (MacDonald = son of Donald). There is another whole article in Wikipedia just devoted to this topic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronymic).

Occupational surnames – These developed in different countries at different times, but they are very common in the English-speaking world where they developed around the Middle Ages. Some good examples that come to mind are Smith, Baker, Miller, Shoemaker, Cook, etc.

Toponymic surnames – These are derived from locations or things in nature. Examples include such things as Washington (town/homestead of Wassa family). Some of these names are habitation (place) names, others may be topographic (geographic features).

 

Examples from my family and my wife’s family

My father’s surname was Russell, my mother’s maiden name was Pierpont, my wife’s mother’s maiden name was Wright, and my wife’s father’s surname was VanDeCar. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

 

Russell – I’ve addressed this name on a couple of occasions before (see https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/04/genealogy-story-my-norman-ancestors.html and https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-russell-family-name.html). The origin of this toponymic surname is during the time of the Norman occupation of northern France, where a man with the name Hugh became the baron of a small town called Rozel or Roussel – thus becoming Hugh de Rozel or Hugh de Roussel (literally Hugh of/from Rozel/Roussel). This is a good example of the toponymic surname convention used by “royalty” at the time since Hugh was a baron. The family went to England during the Norman invasion of 1066, where the “de” part was dropped and the spelling modified to Russell and there was later a Russell clan in Scotland. The Russells in the US are from various immigrants from both the English and Scottish lines.

Pierpont – I’ve also addressed this name before (see https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2015/04/genealogy-story-my-norman-ancestors.html). Another man, also Hugh and also a baron, had a castle in Normandy (just 15 miles from the town of Rozel). But he took this toponymic family name not from a town, but from the well-known stone bridge which was in front of the castle. In French this would have been “Pierre” (stone) “Pont” (bridge), so he was Hugh de Pierrepont. This name with that spelling is still found today with some of my distant French cousins. When Hugh’s grandson went to England as part of the Norman invasion, they dropped the “de” part and the name became Pierrepont and that name may still be found there today. As the family spread throughout England, there were variant spelling including Pierpont, Pierpoynt, Pierpoint, and others. These variations can also be found throughout the US as there were several individuals who immigrated here at different times. My mother’s family is descended from John Pierpont who came to New England around 1640, but there is also a branch of Pierpoints who are the descendants of Henry Pierpoint who came to Maryland around the same time.

Wright – this is an example of an occupational surname that originated in England several centuries after the toponymic names above. There are more specific occupations that had separate names – such as Cartwright or Wainwright, but this is the more “generic” occupation from that time period.

VanDeCar – this surname originated in the Hudson River Valley in the mid-1600s (see http://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/03/genealogy-story-vandecar-family.html). At the time this was part of New Netherlands and was occupied by the Dutch. The Dutch prior to this time used a patronymic naming system where surnames had a suffix of “sz” (short for son of) or “je” (short for daughter of) leading to such names as “Feytje Claesz Van Schaack” (my wife’s great*7 grandmother). The oldest ancestor in the male VanDeCar line that anyone has been able to trace was Dirk Van Der Karre/Karr/Kerr (1637-1727) (there were several alternate spellings), Since Van Der Karre (and its many more recent derivatives such as VanDecar, VanDeCar, Vandecar, etc.) is only found in the US, it was presumed that the adaptation of this name which means “from/of the Kerre” was from that time period. But no one had been able to find anything back in the Netherlands named “Kerre” (or Karre or Karr) from which it might have been derived as a toponymic surname.

 

Some new information

I recently became aware of a posting that someone had made on a message board which stated “An early American ancestor of mine, Dirk van der Kerr, was always presumed Dutch. But recent DNA tests show matches with the Scottish Carr (Kerr) family. Looks like some of the Carrs left Scotland for Holland.”

In contacting this individual (whose mother’s maiden name was spelled VanDecar), I learned that the family had done some y-DNA testing (which traces the male line only as the DNA is from the Y chromosome). This y-DNA testing can go back farther than the typical DNA testing which is looking for common segments of DNA on multiple chromosomes. And this testing revealed that there were a number of individuals in Scotland in the Kerr family who were in the same haplo-group, i.e., who shared that portion of the Y chromosome. This is an exciting discovery!

If correct, this means that when Dirk gave his surname as “Van Der Kerre” he meant Dirk “from the Kerre (clan)”. So, the derivation history of the name was “de Ker” (Norman meaning “from Ker”) to “Kerr” (Scottish surname of the Kerr clan), to “van der Kerre” (Dutch meaning “of the Kerr clan”) to today’s “VanDeCar” (or VanDecar or Vandecar) with the sound equivalence of “Car” and “Kerre”.

There is an excellent Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Kerr) which has the whole history of this clan/surname and which includes the following information:

·        Name has several variant spellings including Kerr, Kear, Carr, Carre, and Cares

·        “Name stems from the Old Norse jkarr which means marsh dweller, and came to Scotland from Normandy”

·        “During the reign of David I (1082-1153), Hugh de Morville, Lord High Constable of Scotland [note that Morville was another town quite close to Rozel and the Pierrepont castle in Normandy], granted lands to the Norman family of William de Ker (William from Ker).” Believed to be the Normandy town of Criel, renamed Criel-sur-Mer in 1902.

This means that the name is not a patronymic surname, but rather is a toponymic surname after the town of Ker in Normandy (just like the Russell surname) – albeit with a rather complicated path from Normandy to Scotland to The Netherlands, and finally to the Americas.

Isn’t history fun?!

[maps of Rozel, etc. in Normandy]

Rozel

Saint Saveur-de-Pierrepont

Criel-sur-Mer