Thursday, April 5, 2012

the Searcy name


After a few months of being married, it hit me that Searcy is now my name for the rest of my life. I remember having learned about my maiden name, King, in elementary school. Pretty standard to have to do a project on your name and coat of arms. I have a brand new name that I know nothing about. Kind of exciting! So, I decided to look into my new name a bit.

Searcy -- I found two different origins of the Searcy name; French and English.

English -- The Searcy name originates in St. Saire, Normandy and was then brought to England by the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Searcy's settled in Essex. It was said that many different spellings were derived from "Saire" of St. Saire because old and middle English lacked definite spelling rules. The other names that are most common that came from this are Sayres, Sayer and Sayers.

French -- The Searcy name originates in Bourgogne and can be traced back to very early times. The name has many spellings including basically any spelling you can think of when sounding out "Searcy"... Cearcie, Cearsy, Sercie, etc... Here is a cool site with more info on the French Searcy origin. Pretty cool!

Other random facts -

Based on the Civil War Service Records, there were 135 Searcys in the Civil War; 77 Confederate and 58 Union.

Searcy's Occupations according to the 1880 Federal Census Data:
-49% Farmers
-6% Keeping House
-6% Laborer
-4% Farm Laborer
-2% Blacksmith

Looking forward to learning more about the Searcy name!

1 comment:

  1. hi laura my family are searcy,s from nottingham huguenot refugee,s our grandad john searcy 1st ww veteran and awarded silver war badge always talked of pig iron and a slang of sarc for searcy. you are welcome to get in touch as their are many of us still around melvin great britain and life long ambasserdor of the french hospital rochester kent great britain 07719712070

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