Alfred Bird developed Bird’s custard and baking powder because his wife Elizabeth suffered badly from digestive disorders. The Byrds were said to have had ancestral roots in Braxton, Cheshire.Īlfred Bird and His Custard and Baking Powder. London forebears of John Byrd were Thomas Byrd a vintner, who was born in 1599, and Thomas LeBird, who was born in 1574. His father John Byrd was a London goldsmith who had married Grace Stegge and they were to have six children, including William. The inherited land included the present site of Richmond and some of the best land in Virginia. It was William Byrd I, the first of the Byrd family in America, who came to America in 1674 as heir to his uncle Captain Thomas Stegge.
The following are the approximate numbers today. The Bird spelling is most common in England, Byrd in America. Their father Thomas Bird, born in 1600, had married his first cousin Elizabeth who was sometimes Bird and sometimes Byrd. Thus we have John le Byrd, born in 1620, and his two brothers Thomas Bird, born in 1621, and William Bird, born in 1621. There were in fact several examples of this occurring in the same family, with two siblings selecting an alternate spelling. The name was originally Bird with an “i” and would continue to be spelt on that basis until the beginning of the 16th century. These Byrds were augmented by some native Indians who adopted the Byrd name.īird and Byrd. James Byrd moved his family from Tennessee to Missouri and the family ended up after the Civil War in Brown county, Texas. This was also the case with Abraham and Jesse Byrd who migrated west to Tennessee in the 1790’s. His descendants later moved as Birds to the Carolinas and then to Georgia.īut others who made the same journey were or became Byrds. John Bird, for instance, was born there in 1742 and fought in the Revolutionary War. A number of immigrants came to Virginia as Birds. These two Byrds were to dominate Virginia political life for much of the 20th century.īirds and Byrds. Later Byrds of the family included the aviator and explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd, as well as Virginia Governor and US Senator Harry F. These Byrds were one of the “First Families of Virginia.” This family survived the dissipation and eventual suicide of the grandson, William Byrd III, in 1777.īyrd Park in Richmond was named after William Byrd II. William Byrd came to Virginia from London in the 1670’s and was granted land on the James river, the site of the town of Richmond that was founded by his son, William II. The spelling in America has been mainly Byrd, in part because of the influence of one Virginia family.īyrds. Some Birds in Ireland, however, were of English extraction – like Samuel Bird who went to Ireland with William’s army in 1690 and then settled in Donegal.Īmerica. Bird appeared as a surname in Ireland as an anglicization of the Irish McEneaney, although this was apparently a mistranslation. The Byrd spelling persisted in the west country, although the Byrd numbers here were quite small by the time of the 1891 census. Another William Byrd, the forebear of the Byrds in Virginia, was the son of a London goldsmith.Ī Byrd family was one of the big landowners at Badsey of the Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire in the 18th century.
William Byrd, born in London, was Queen Elizabeth’s favorite musician and composer. It is now run by the third generation of Birds.īyrd as a spelling may have started in the 15th century. Birds is also a bakery company begun in Derby in 1919 by three Bird brothers – Frank, Thomas and Reginald – after their return from World War One. The name spread to Lancashire, the Midlands, London and East Anglia.Īlfred Bird of Bird’s custard fame was born in Gloucestershire, but started his business in Birmingham in the 1840’s. Although the Bird form was first found in the Northumbrian dialect of English, early Bird families came from Cheshire (Braxton) and Staffordshire (Metley).
Bird Family History Birds from Lincolnshire.The Bird spelling is most common in England, Byrd in America.īird and Byrd Surname Resources on The Internet Early appearances of the surname in England were Ralph le Brid in Essex in 1231 and Richard Bird in Cambridgeshire in 1260. Hugo le Bird – the name coming from the French l’oiseau and deriving perhaps from his skill at falconry – was said to have arrived with William the Conqueror in 1066. Occasionally Bird or a variant may have been an occupational name for a bird catcher. The Bird surname derived from the Old English bridde, meaning “bird,” and was originally in England a nickname for someone who was thought to have bird-like qualities (in their gait or because of their singing voice).