Thursday 20 September 2018

THE MEANING OF THE BYERS SURNAME

I received an email today from Ancestry, inviting me to discover the origins of my surname. Clicking on a link in the email took me to the Ancestry website, and this informed me of the following (although please bear in mind the source of this information is from the "Dictionary Of American Family Names") - 
Byers Name Meaning:  Scottish and Northern English. Topographic name for someone who lived by a cattle-shed, Middle English byre, or a habitational name with the same meaning from any of several places named with Old English "byre"; for example, Byers Green in County Durham. Amercanised spelling of the German "Bayers".

And "Where is the Byers family from"?


The above is a map of England reflecting the preponderance of the Byers surname in the Census year of 1891. The recorded number of the Byers surname in the UK in 1891 was 1,266. The county with the largest number of Byers was Cumberland with 23% of the total; next was Lancashire with 14%; London with 10% and then Northumberland with 6%.

It's a pity there is no mention of the Scottish statistics. As far as I am aware the surname "Byers" originated from Dumfriesshire and indeed almost all my Byers ancestors came from that county. The relevant parishes within that county are - Lochmaben, Kirkmichael, Wamphray, Westerkirk, Canonbie and Gretna. All these parishes are located in either the middle or east of Dumfriesshire. A map of all the county's parishes is shown below.

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5 comments:

  1. Unknown10 December 2019 at 19:22

    Interesting read! I was wondering if you are in contact with any of the Cumberland Byers'? I did do my family history but have sadly lost many of the documents.

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  2. Unknown10 December 2019 at 19:24

    ps i thought it would display my email there to contact me, but apparently not, my name is Richard (Byers obviously!) if you ever wanted to get in contact about my history over here you can on admin@richardbyersphotography.com

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  3. Neil Byers18 December 2019 at 12:43

    Hello and thanks for your comments. Unfortunately I have not come across any Byers from Cumberland - really only Dumfriesshire. The mention of Cumberland in my blog related to the 1891 Census, which only covered England. It would be interesting to have more up to date stats, particularly in relation to Scotland. Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to read my blog.

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  4. Unknown17 December 2020 at 17:29

    I am very stuck on finding if my Byers family branch is Scottish or German. My Grandmother was told she was Pennsylvania Dutch but my DNA profile has a lot of Scottish in it.

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  5. Neil Byers18 December 2020 at 05:06

    Hello. As mentioned, my Byers all hail from Dumfriesshire with no German connection found. Regards, Neil Byers

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