Origins of the Burbury/Burbery/Burberry Surname

This page is still under construction.
Don't pay too much attention to what I've written below. Everything on this page is still in draft form.

Note: Early records dealing with individuals and families tend to be inconsistent in their use of spelling. Parituclarly with family surnames, the spellings used can vary from year to year, from family to family and from individual to individual, sometimes even within the same document. The Burbury surname can be spelt in any number of different ways, and sometimes it is impossible to establish a consistent usage. The scope of my research terefore covers surnames such as BURBERY, BURBERRY, BIRBURY and many more besides, in addition to my own surname which is spelt BURBURY. To detail all these variations every time I want to refer to the surname in general gets tedious for me the writer and for you the reader. Therefore, throughout the following discussion, general references to the surname BURBURY should be understood to include all possible variants of that surname.

Click here to read an article on the variant spellings of the BURBURY surname

Historically the surname BURBURY in England seems to have been concentrated in the county of Warwickshire. Within this county, if you drew a circle around the north-eastern region encompassing the towns of Kenilworth, Nuneaton and Rugby, you would find that the majority of Burburys were living somewhere within this circle, in these three localities and also in towns such as Coventry, Stoneleigh, Stretton on Dunsmore and Foleshill. Evidence for the dispersion of the name can be found by referring to the International Genealogical Index which has been compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. This index -- often referred to by its initials as the IGI -- has become a valuable resource for family historians wishing to trace their family trees in England during previous centuries.

Nowadays it is difficult to know who all of these Burburys might have been, and what the connections between them were. I daresay that it if were possible to go back in time indefinitely, then somewhere a link binding all of these families would be found. However, in reality such an exercise is impractical and even impossible, as the records available to use simply do not allow it. The further back we go, the more sparse the records become. We also start meeting additional difficulties, such as wide variations in spelling of the names. It is fairly well accepted that surnames such as BURBURY, BURBERY, BURBERRY and similar are all possible variations on a single surname.

Calendar of Wills in Lichfield Consistory Court
Burbury Entries from 1500 to 1650

(Note: This list was compiled by John Coker, a professional researcher from Birmingham who was commissioned to do some research by Wynifred Sinclair in the 1970s as part of the preparation for her book Thomas Burbury - A Pioneer of Van Diemen's Land. Coker's list gives the surname spellings consistently as BURBURY, but the actual spellings might be different in some cases. I have not been to Lichfield and checked either the calendar of wills or the wills themselves.)

Future Areas for Research
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• Examine wills for early Burburys that were proved in the Lichfield Consistory Court
• Also examine the calendars of wills in neighbouring dioceses, particularly the diocese covering Aynho and Guilsborough in Northamptonshire
• Search the parish registers for Aynho, Guilsborough and surrounding parishes in Northamptonshire for references to the BURBURY surname and variants.

Other related links:

• An article on the variant spellings of the BURBURY surname
• A letter written by Rev. T.E.T. Burbury discussing family origins
• Alfred Burbury's Chronicles of the Burbury Family
• Go back to the information page for the Surrey Burberry family
• Go back to the Index of Miscellaneous Articles page
• Go to the Burbury Family Website home page

• Search the family tree database by surname
• Search the family tree database by individual