Origin of the Albro Name
Phil Albro, October 2000
(Note: If you click on the links in the text below, close the new window to return to this text.)
If one looks for predigested information about ones family line, one must expect oversimplifications and the appearance of certainty where none exists. For example, there is "The Albro Scroll" © the Hall of Names International, Inc. This document will make the flat statement "The ancient chronicles of England reveal the early records of the name Albro as a Norman surname which ranks as one of the oldest." It will further declare "The family name Albro is believed to be descended originally from the Norman race". It will also state "from time to time the surname included Aldborough, Alderborough, Aldbrough, Aldbrow, Aldeborough, Aldburc, Aldburgh, Aldberg, Elderborough, Alborough, Albrough, Aldeburgh, and these changes in spelling frequently occurred, even between father and son."
Or, one can purchase "The World Book of Albros", copyright MCMXCI by Halbert's Family Heritage. This will declare "The surname Albro appears to be locational in origin. Our research indicates that it can be associated with the English, meaning 'one who came from Alburgh'." Further, "dictionaries of surnames indicate probable spelling variations of the Albro surname to be Alborough, Alburgh, and Albrow."
I advise you to be leary of phrases like "is believed to be" when there is no answer to the question "by whom?" Also be sceptical of long lists of books and references when there are no citations in the text to indicate which references, if any, provide the claims being made. It is simple enough to provide a list of the contents of ones library. This is not the same as citing the specific sources for ones statements.
The two commercial documents referenced above can not be accused of saying anything that is actually incorrect. One can say that ANY English surname is "Norman", in the sense that the Normans introduced the USE of surnames into England 28 . But if a family has known Norman roots, some person of definite Norman descent having at least a precursor of that surname should be identified in the document. In the cases above, none is. Turning to the list of "spelling variations", we must ask whether the surnames listed merely sound (or read) more or less alike, or there is in fact some historical information demonstrating that these names have some common relationship. Note the careful use of the word "probable" in the Halbert's document. That equates to 'maybe so, maybe no.' Neither of the above documents provide any evidence that these surnames have anything in common beyond a vague similarity in sound.
I repeat, this is not to imply that either of these documents is making incorrect statements. This IS to imply that they are making these statements without providing any evidence for their accuracy. The reality is, the "ancient chronicles" of England do not contain the surname "Albro" spelled as such. No specific American with the surname "Albro" can presently be traced step by step back to an English family with any of the other spelling variations either. It is simply necessary to assume that "Albro" evolved in spelling from an earlier form, possibly (but not certainly) from one of the forms listed above. Hereditary surnames began to become popular in England in about 1150, because of the need for clear identification of individuals for establishing property ownership and imposing taxes. Thus as one would expect, the wealthier families acquired surnames first, the poor much later. There were very few surnames newly created in England after about 1400 A.D.
If we in fact do list all sources and declare our evidence, what can we conclude about the origin of the Albro surname, which by this spelling is much more common in American than elsewhere?
Almost all the Albros in the United States are descendants of John Albro, who came to America in 1634 on the ship Francis out of Ipswich, England. His name recorded in the passenger log was transcribed as "John Aldburgh" in the copy at the Public Record Office, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, England 29 . Coincidentally (?), the Manor of Aldborough in Yorkshire 1 , which had previously belonged to the Duchy of Lancaster, was purchased by Arthur Aldburgh in 1629. The Aldburgh spelling for John was accepted by John Camden Hotten 2 in his The Original Lists of Persons of Quality 1600-1700 . John Osborne Austin, in his One Hundred and Sixty Allied Families , spelled it Alburgh 3 . Conder 4 thought it was Aldbugh , while Savage 5 spelled it Alborow, but listed variants of Alborough, Albro, Aldbury, Albroe, and Alsberrie. Paul Elvidge, writing in the RootsWeb Albro Forum (May 23, 2000) states "I have been researching the surname Albrow in the UK. At least regarding my ancestors, who lived in Norfolk and Suffolk, the derivation is as follows: Aldborough (from the place name) to Alborough to Albrough to Albrow/Albro (rhymes with toe) to Albrow (rhymes with how.)" Early records of Rhode Island, especially tax listings, indicate that of John Albro's two sons, John Jr. preferred the spelling Albrough , while his brother Samuel preferred Albrow . However, as an illustration of the fact that there seemed to be no feeling in the 17th or 18th centuries that the spelling of a person's name should be associated with any degree of consistancy, we may consider "The Diary of Capt. Samuel Tillinghast of Warwick, Rhode Island, 1757-1766", transcribed and edited by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, Special Publication No.3, Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 2000. Elder Samuel Albro, grandson of John Albro, was a close friend of Samuel Tillinghast and is mentioned 32 times in the diary. His name is spelled 'Albro' 18 times, 'Alsbro' twice, 'Albrough' 8 times, 'Aulboro' once, 'Albery' once, and 'Alsbrough' twice. Note that these are not spelling variations used by different people who may or may not have been related. These are spelling variations applied to the same individual, by an individual who was his close friend and acquaintance.
While some secondary sources report that the precursor of one variation of the name "Albro" was brought to England by a Norman Knight arriving about two generations after William the Conqueror, specifically de Alberrye , I have not researched this aspect of the issue and will not comment on it here. Genealogists seem to agree (at least I haven't found any who disagree) that "Albro" and many of its variants are derived from place names, that is, where someone was born or a place of residence with which they became associated. It may therefore be helpful to examine place names in England from which the Albro surname might have evolved.
Since the precursor "Aldebrough" dates back at least to the Domesday Book 6 written in 1088, it could not have originated with a Norman knight arriving in the 1100s. Still, we must keep in mind the difference between the origin and evolution of a place name, and the appearance of a surname derived from it. Since the quaint notion that a given word has a "correct"spelling did not catch on until the invention of the dictionary in the 19 th century, one can not always identify the place of origin from the way a place-derived surname is spelled. Moreover, there are several places in England from which a person could (and did) derive a surname that could be simplified to "Albro." We must also recall that "Aldburgh" is merely how the clerk chose to spell John's surname on the ship's passenger log, not necessarily how John himself might have chosen.
Suffolk
It is believed by onomatologists 7 that the name originated in Suffolk, spread to Yorkshire, and thence to Norfolk. The current Aldeburgh , near Ipswich, corresponds to what was given as Aldebrough above (Domesday Book.) However, one finds alternate spellings, including Aldburgh 8 , and Alborough 9 , sometimes used in referring to this East Suffolk, seaside village 10 , which is located north of Orford and south of Dunwich. Wilkie Collins 11 set the key confrontation of his novel "No Name" (1862) in Aldeburgh , using the then contemporary spelling of Aldborough , as it appeared in 1860s train timetables. Local people complained that there were at least six ways to spell the name of the town. Aldeburgh is famous for an international music festival founded by Benjamin Britten 12 , Peter Pears and Eric Crozier; a poetry festival; the poet George Crabbe ; and it is a Mecca for aficionados of sundials 13 . Moreover, it was administered by the first woman mayor in England, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. The current population is about 3000, swelling to 6000 during the festivals 14 . We have not been able to find a family associated with Aldeburgh, Suffolk in the 12 th through 14 th centuries with a surname sounding like Albro.
Yorkshire
In Yorkshire, North Riding, close to the border with Durham, we have Aldborough , "old fort", in the parish of St. John Stanwick, wapentake of Gilling West, seven miles from Richmond and Darlington. Its population 15 was 544 in 1822. This site had been a large Roman city, but its Roman name has been lost. The name is now commonly shortened to Aldbrough 16 . The manor of this 1807 acre township, referred to as Aldburne in the Domesday Book, belonged at that time to the Saxon chieftains Tor, Sprot and Grim. The name Aldbrough is considered Anglo-Saxon 17 or Anglian 30 . The area was the property of Sir William de Aldburgh during the time Edward Balliol was claimant to the throne of Scotland (around 1330). In the time of Henry I, the manor at Stanwick St. John was known as Aldburgh and belonged to Harsculf Musard. The spelling Aldburghe was used in the time of the Taillebois (Tallboys) barony. The church is named for St. John and St. Paul.
There is a hamlet named Aldburgh in the township of Burton-upon-Ure and parish of Masham 19 . This hamlet is two miles from Masham, six from Bedale, and nine from Ripon, again in Yorkshire North Riding. It contains Aldburgh Hall (Aldbrough Manor), in 1822 the residence of James Henry D'Arcy Hutton, Esq. A long-gone castle here, whose site was called Aldborough, was the seat of the Earls of Albemarl, who also held the lordship of Holderness. The castle of William le Gros, who was created Earl of York in 1138, is also thought to have been located nearby. (Note however that "History of Mashamshire" by Fisher claims that the castle was located in Aldburgh, Holderness.)
In what had been Yorkshire East Riding, on the North Sea, we have another Aldbrough 20 , a parish this time, containing the Albrough House (B1242 on the 1999 Royal Commission survey on the Historical Monuments of England.) This is a parish of some 5,500 acres in Holderness, Humberside county, mostly agricultural land. It contains a village, Aldbrough , once called Aldaburga 4 , "old town", about 7 miles south of Hornsea and 12 miles northeast of Hull, with a population of about 1200 in 1991. This area was an old settlement before the Angles named it Aldburh 21 . The original castle washed away some time after 1115. The manor was named Aldburgh when owned by the Roos family in 1333, the time the Aldburgh Fair was begun. Sir William Aldeburgh, first Baron Aldeburgh, lived here from 1370 31 . The Church of St. Bartholomew contains the tomb of Sir John de Melsa, a 6' 6" warrior of note and governor of York from 1292-1296.
There is yet another Aldborough in the old West Riding with townships in North Riding. This is a parish and village, named Aldburgh by the Saxons, in the lower division of Claro. The village is one mile from Boroughbridge, 7 miles from Ripon, and 16 miles from York, population 484 in 1823. This was the Iseur of the ancient Britons, the administrative center of the Brigantes. It was the Isurium of the Romans, destroyed by the Danes, and repeatedly rebuilt. (Aldborough was burned to the ground when the Romans left. A subsequent Saxon population replaced the Roman one, and the town was burned to the ground by the Danes in 870.) Names of the town progressed from Isurium to Burc or Burgh to Ealdburgh to Aldburgh to Aldborough. The town was completely destroyed again by William the Conqueror. The parish also includes the townships of Humberton, Minskip and Ellenthorpe. The village is about 15 miles from the famous Harewood House 18 , construction on which began in 1738. The church is dedicated to St. Andrew ; Richard de Aldeburgh founded a chantry at the east end of the north aisle. It was formerly known as the Aldeburgh Chapel, always in the possession of the owners of the manor house33. It is now called the Aldburgh Chapel 22 . The memorial brass of William de Aldeburgh dated at 1360 is still present in the church, and a sepulchral slab commemorates William Aldburgh, d.15 April 1475. One branch of this Aldeburgh/Aldburgh family is stated to have moved to Norfolk 1 . These two apparently unrelated de Aldeburgh/Aldburgh families, one associated with Aldbrough St.John and the other with Aldborough near Boroughbridge, have often been confused. Click here for more discussion of the two families.
Norfolk
Moving on to Norfolk, we find Aldborough, originally de Aldborough , as a surname mentioned in town records 4 of Norwich in 1198 and 1204 and in the Leet Rolls 23 of 1316. The Durrant family database 24 lists Sarah Durrant as having been born in 1786 in Aldborough , Norfolk, England. One of the bases of the 8 th USAAF was located there 25 . Aldborough is located in northern Norfolk, in the triangle between Thurgarton, Alby Hill, and Wickmere, and the name is considered Old English or even older Germanic in origin 25 . The population was 571 in 1991. The small Church of St. Mary is known for fine 15 th century brass, and a Victorian window in memory of J. G. Nelson whose tulip bulbs still grow there.
There is also a village in south Norfolk named Alburgh 26, 27, 32 . This village is 3 1/2 miles N.E. by N. of Harleson and 6 miles W. of Bungay, with a population of 575 in 2001. The church of All Saints dates back to the 15th century.
So where did the American Albros get their name? More specifically, for which town was the family line of John Albro of Portsmouth, RI named? Should we ever know for sure, we'll post it here.
If "Albro" as a surname was originally derived from a place, it is not obvious that it should be assigned a Norman origin. The available evidence suggests that the "Al" has become shortened from "Ald", which is of Germanic origin (Angle or before), by way of the Anglo-Saxon "Eald", and has the meaning "old." "Borough", literally "place", had variants of "burgh" and earliest of all"burc", "burg" and "burh", all of which are considered Saxon or Anglo-Saxon in origin and predate the Norman Invasion. They may be translated "town" or "fortress" (which are actually synonyms, when speaking of the Middle Ages.) Would a Norman family have accepted a Saxon place name as their surname? Perhaps in time, but it would have been questionable soon after the conquest. What is fairly obvious, is that surnames sounding something like "Albro" must have been adopted many times, relative to many places, by many unrelated families.
The above in no way implies that John Albro was from a town of any particular name. However, it does imply that his ancestor who began this surname may have been from a town named Aldburgh, or some related spelling. One must realize that the current name of the town might be quite different. Which of the several possible towns is the relevant one remains unknown. It is very important to also remember that the origin of the name and the genetic origin of a family line are two different things. Saxons did marry Angles. Normans did marry Anglo-Saxons. Until one can trace a family generation by generation back through the ages, it is very difficult to say whether there was a Saxon, Norman or whatever contribution to the family genealogy. However, see the section on DNA analysis for a possible means!
References
1 Lawson-Tancred, Sir T., Three Seventeenth Century Court Rolls of the Manor of Aldborough, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 35 , Pt.2, 1941.
2 Hotten, John Camden, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality 1600-1700 , Genealogical Publ. Co., Baltimore, MD, 1978, p.278.
3 Austin, John Osborne, One Hundred and Sixty Allied Families , Providence, RI (1893); CD504 Early New England Settlers, Surnames A-H, copyright © The Learning Center, Inc., July 22, 2000.
4 The Albro Family History: Information From Rhode Island, New York, Switzerland Co. Indiana, Gallatin & Grayson Counties Kentucky . Researched and written by Mrs. Alice Simonton Seibenthal Pendry, Vevey, Indiana, 1943 and Darrell W. Conder, Pasadena, California, 1990
5 Savage, James, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England , Boston, 1860.
6 E.M. Hallam, Domesday Book Through Nine Centuries , London, 1986.
7 P.H. Reaney, The Origins of English Surnames , Barnes & Noble, Inc., N.Y., 1967, p.334.
8 Descendants of John Harrison , www.ampneycrucis.f9.co.uk/PARK/hapafg02.htm
9 Descendants of James McMonigle , my.voyager.net/davemcmo/descendan/pafg146.htm
10 East Suffolk A TourUK Travel Guide , www.touruk.co.uk/suff/esuff.htm
11 Wilkie's Aldborough, www.deadline.demon.co.uk/wilkie/Aldeburgh/Aldeburgh.htm
12 Note: The music played when you click on the Benjamin Britten link above is Hymn to Saint Cecilia, Opus 27, Seq.by David Siu, MIDI from classical.ndirect.co.uk.
13 My favorite sundials in Suffolk, England , John Davis, www.sundials.co.uk/~suffolk.htm
14 About Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England, www.btinternet.com/~aldeburgh.bookshop/alde.html
15 Thomas Langdale, A Topographical Dictionary of Yorkshire, North Riding, November 1822.
16 Stanwick Saint John: Geographical and Historical information from the year 1890, GENUKI, 10/17/2000.
17 County Durham Place Name Origins, ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/north_east_england_history_page/
18 Harewood House, www.microart-ukheritage.co.uk/houses/harewood.htm
19 Masham Supplementary, GENUKI, Masham, 1822.
20 Aldbrough, East Yorkshire, Humberside, England, United Kingdom, ds.dial.pipex.com/town/walk/aer96/aldbrough
21 Aldbrough: Geographical and Historical Information from the year 1892 , GENUKI, from Bulmers' 1892.
22 Sir Robert Percy , www.lionrampant.org/resource/robtext.html
23 W. Hudson, Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich During the XIIIth and XIVth Centuries , Selden Society, Vol. V, 1892.
24 Sarah Durrant, , www.durrant.demon.co.uk/genealogy/D0007/I1084.html
25 Aldborough , www.trianglia.freeserve.co.uk/Tom_Feise/tomaldb.htm
26 See the Hales family tree at www.hales.org/halesj01.html
27 The Story of the Transports , www.bens.connectfree.co.uk/pb/TRANSP.HTM
28 The Origin of Surnames available at www.infokey.com/hon/Origin.htm , copyright © 2000, Hall of Names International, Inc. See also An English Family: from 1066 to the Present Day , www.ott.igs.net/~rhmallett/mmm.htm , owned by Robert Mallett, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
29 "A note of all the names and ages of all those which Did not take the Oath of Allegance and Supremacy being vnder age shipped in our Port in the ffrancis of Ipswich Mr John Cutting; bound for New England the last of April, 1634." Ipswich Customhouse, November 12, 1634; Name transcribed as John Aldburgh (14). Quoted in American Plantations and Colonies - Ships to America - The Francis, 1634, which states "As copied from original." See also "Passengers to America" pp.445-45; "The Planters of the Commonwealth" pp.121-124; The Winthrop Project, which states "This information was transcribed in the 19th century by Michael Tepper from records found in London at Her Magesty's State Papers Office."; and A.R. Justice, p.47 (cited in Dugan Genealogy, in section on William Freeborn.)
30 Kent, G.H.R., (ed) "A History of the County of York East Riding", Vol. VII, p.5-27 (2002)
31 www.thepeerage.org , Person Page 339.
32 See Francis White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Norfolk 1854, pp.376-377.
33 A Guide Book to the Antiquities of Aldborough and Boroughbridge and a short account of their history by Lady Lawson-Tancred, revised edition, 1927, J. Whitehead and Sons, Ltd., Leeds
Copyright © 2000, Phil Albro. All rights reserved.