DUBBERLEY/DUBBERLOW Surname

[TJNazing]

There are a few BMDs for people called DUBBERLEY/DUBBERLOW in Herefordshire. Does anyone know whether the surname is native to Herefordshire or where it really comes from?

[Victor Harvey]

Hi,
The National Burial Index (NBI) indicates that the surname DUBBERLEY is very common in Ross on Wye, Herefordshire if that's any help.
Victor

[mazi]

Hi, and welcome to rootschat.  A search of freebmd for england and wales over 20 year period shows most of this surname in herefordshire, spreading into gloucester and monmouth, and none at all for most other counties.

It could just possibly be a corruption of guillaume    d'obbern    a follower of william the conqueror, who was made 1st earl of hereford.

[TJNazing]

Thanks Victor & Mazi.

There have also been CUBBERLEYs in Ross on Wye and Ross Foreign just to make life interesting. Is it pushing it too far to say that the two names could have been confused by clerks and transcribers? DUBBERLEY-CUBBERLEY CUBBERLEY-DUBBERLEY

Judging by the hearth tax lists, etc., the DUBBERLEYs look like farmers or something, not Earls!?

[mazi]

Purely my personal thought based on the herefordshire accent I hear (and am starting to use  )
C s and D s are pronounced clearly and slowly, its h s and vowels that can be varied.

I think the frenchman who became earl of hereford in 1066 might have a lot of offspring by now 

[TJNazing]

I was thinking more of mistranscriptions. The brain tends to make leaps of logic, so if a transcriber reading a poor quality record sees an "ubberley" they are prone to stay with with the name that is familiar to them, and not what was actually written..

[mazi]

I can see what you are saying, the forest of dean family history soc. have transcribed some parish records for the area round ross on wye, these are independant transcriptions, I think, so could provide a
cross check if this is your area of interest and timescale

[TJNazing]

Thanks Mazi.

I am scouting out at the moment (for the C-ubberleys not the D-ubberleys) and so am just trying to disentangle them from similar names that often get confused/blurred into one. For the time being I just needed to know that the Dubberleys were definiiely a separate family and not a transcriber gone wild!

I came across a good example of mistranscription yesterday, in the name index of some PR Transcriptions there were several C-ubberley bapts but when I actually looked through the register year by year there was another belonging to the same parents but had been transcribed as V-ubberley! 

Incidentally, would it be fair to say that trying to find wills (1500-1800) for the Ross area is a pain as they are not indexed by the BRS or anyone?

[mazi]

I am no expert on wills but there are people on rootschat who are, a post in" the common room" may produce some help.

some parishes in west herefordshire come under the diocese of st. davidsand some wills are at the national library of walesb but I'm not sure about ross.