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Wales (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Wales => Topic started by: Strawfoot on Friday 10 February 12 07:03 GMT (UK)
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I'm from America and have been looking into my Genealogy for about 3 years. My surname is Epperson. In early records I've also seen it as Apperson. The import of a John Epperson was paid by a man named James Christian, 1719. I've seen this in Virginia Patent books. I've seen earlier records of Eppersons and Appersons in America but this is the earliest immigration related document.
A lot of forum posts and discussions I have seen suggest that this family is Welsh, and the name was originally Ap Pearson or something similar. However, I have never seen any kind of proof, nor ran into anyone in Wales with any of these names. Is this a possibility? Does someone have some information that may help me? It has also been suggested the family may be Scottish or English.
Thank you in advance.
- Strawfoot
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This seems to be a nice story - but fanciful, I fear!
In the Welsh language, the prefic "Ap" means "son of".
In English (and other languages!), the suffix "son" denotes "son of".
So, do we really think we have a surname that includes a prefix AND a suffix, both meaning "son of", in 2 different languages?
Not really! ;D
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I had thought similar. My personal belief is the name is from England or Scotland, but I want to be sure so I couldn't ignore it.
The common thing they say is that Person or Parson means a layman of a church in Welsh. Seeing as I do not speak Welsh I have no way of confirming this.
You're correct not only would it be son(blank)son but I doubt Per is a common name lol. Thank you.
- Strawfoot
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the pear bit of pearson comes from Piers or Peter according to my Oxford Dictionary of Surnames.
Person does mean parson but 'they' are confused as a parson isn't a layman as lay refers to someone who isn't a clergyman.
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I had thought that was strange myself. It would explain the look of son(blank)son name. However I have seen very few Eppersons or Appersons listed in Wales. There seems to be quite a few in England and some in Scotland. There has never really been any concrete info linking it, just a variety of family stories on the internet.
The "They" in my comment is a reference to many sourceless comments and posts in forum websites.
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Still at a bit of a brick wall, can anyone offer any information or advice?
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There is this website:
http://bobepperson.com/epporapp.htm
But I would treat it with a huge pinch of salt!
The author is one of those who erroneously believes that a coat-of-arms is attached to a family name, rather than (correctly) to an individual!
So basic errors in the first few paragraphs! ::)
Have you contacted the owner of the Epperson One-Name Study?
http://www.one-name.org/profiles/epperson.html
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Bob Eppersons French Origin story is more than far fetched hah. It's classic pay-for-results genealogy. I haven't been in contact with the one name study people but I may try that, see where they get this "Spain or Morocco" origin. An unfortunate drawback of DNA genealogy is it's still in it's infant-hood and could turn out less than accurate, and it just paints where your family is from in a big swath. I'm sure my results would come back Northern European, and since borders are made by man not genes it can't tell me a specific country, even though that one name study seems to think it can. Also they have listed John Epperson coming to America in 1680, if anyone could find proof of this I would be incredibly surprised because I've never seen it. Earliest immigration docs I've seen are that passage of John Epperson, and Edmund Apperson coming to Westmoreland VA From Wales.
As a rule of thumb if the sites claiming coats of arms for families I don't use it as a source. Little effort into such a huge topic makes me less than confident in their fact-checking.
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Just thought I'd mention the site in case you hadn't seen it!
I remain unconvinced re DNA Genealogy!