Family History
I
have been researching the name Beard in Gloucestershire for several years now.
I am also interested in the names Gore and Barnes in Gloucestershire, Heywood
in Somerset, Boyles in Oxfordshire or Bucks, Fogden in Sussex, Hamilton in
Sussex & Oxfordshire and Hicks Bolton absolutely anywhere!
My Beard Roots
English surnames have many origins: I believe there are two possibilities for the name Beard.
The first is that it is based on a place name. If this theory is pursued one has to consider a possible connection with the hamlet of Beard in Derbyshire. A Beard family of note in this area occupied Beard Hall and had its own coat of arms.
The second possibility is that the name is derived from the physical appearance of an ancient ancestor. It may date back to Norman times, when it was usual to be clean shaven - so a bearded man would be notable.
In the twentieth century,
general inspection of regional telephone directories indicates that the name
Beard is generally well distributed across the
My confident knowledge of my ancestors starts with Samuel Beard (my Great Great Great Great Grandfather) who was born at Painswick, Gloucestershire in around 1755.
Painswick is situated about 6 miles to the South East of Gloucester. It is now quite a large village, but the older buildings at its centre provide as picturesque an example of a Cotswold village as it is possible to find. Painswick prospered in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds as a centre for cloth weaving. In fact, Cap Mill on one of the streams around the village was owned by one John Beard in 1662.
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Samuel and
Robert Beard
Giles Beard
William
Gore Beard
My father was a Prisoner of War