User Home Pages: The House of Burgesses - Burgess Surname Research
| I am researching all lines concerning the surname of Burgess and its derivative spellings. The purpose is to establish a comprehensive database of Burgess genealogy research. Spelling variations include: - Burgess, - Burgeis, - Burghersh, - Burges, - Burgesse, - Brydges, - Brugge, - Burgge, - Burgus. - Bourges - Bridges New tesearch is underway that may provide some interesting results with material back to medieval England & Wales! I believe that I have found the England origins and ancestors of Col. William Burgess (b1622) while doing some medieval research on another line in some of the Herald's Visitations of 1623 in Gloucester, where I found the only reference to a William Burges during that time period. Given the intentional feudal structure of the Province of Maryland,as originally chartered by the Lord (Calvert) Baltimore, only the gentry (descendents of the British nobility) could have been qualified and given leading roles in colonial Maryland. That being the case, then the family of Col William Burgess (b1622) would be listed in the Herald's Visitation of that time. In 1623, the only William Burges of the current generation was to be found in Gloucester, and he would have been approx a year old at that time. The resulting line developed from there extended back into the late 1200's. On the tombstone of Col William Burgess, the blazon of "Wales, three crosses crosslet fitchee" of the last ties in with the discovery of the Gloucester line, since the land belonging to that line included St. Briavel's castle...only a stone's throw from Offa's Dyke, the border with Wales. The blazon begins with the field of "Wales", which is a contraction of "Quarterly or and gules, four lions passant guardant counter charged", followed by the charge "three crosses crosslet fitchee of the last"...making the crosses "or" in tincture since the tincture of the last lion is "or". The timing of the grant of land by Edward I to William Burgess' ancestor was when Wales was finally conquered and the last Welsh Prince of Wales, Llewellyn ap Gruffudd (http://www.data-wales.co.uk/arms.htm), was killed in battle. A common custom at the time was that the victor in personal battle took the arms of the vanquished, thus the possibility of William's ancestor somehow being involved in that combat is interesting. (By putting 3 crosses crosslet fitchee, all gold, on Llewellyn's arms and you have the arms of Col William Burgess as blazoned on his tombstone.) Another aspect of this research has brought into light the nature of the surname of Burgess. Burgess is usually associated with the term as being "freemen". In my research I have not found a single instance of someone who changed their original surname to that of their title or status as a burgess: John Doe to John Burgess....never happened, they were always known as "John Doe, burgess of Bristol." Burgess as a surname in England/UK is different from burgess as a title or status indicator. In the Norman feudal structure of English society, surnames were essentially a function of your place of origin (rather than occupation...a long mistaken assumption). The gentry and nobility usually took the name of their land as their surname. In England it was only during the middle 1600's did Burges become Burgess.The Burgess' of colonial times all came to America as Burges during the 1600's, and they added the second "s" after coming here.William's surname, Burgess, came through what was originally "Bridge on the Wye", and was first seen as Brugge, onto Brydges, Bridges, then evolved into Burges and finally Burgess. Fundamentally, this line of Burgess evolved from Brugge as a natural function of the evolution of the language of England over several centuries. | The House of Burgesses - Burgess Surname Research Updated June 23, 2003 |
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