Where did the name come from?
Those who have traced their family trees in the UK - starting with family knowledge - then back to parish and local records - they all end up at Bramshall, a small village nearby Uttoxeter in Staffordshire. There, the Parish Register (records of births, marriages and deaths) dates back to the time of the first reconstruction of the church in 1587
The Durose name may be traced easily to the late 16th Century in Staffordshire. Beyond that, the researchers are getting busy....
Where to go from there? There are two theories: One is that Staffordshire folk, famously guilty in modern times of murdering innocent vowels, simply took another name and it mutated into Durose sometime before the 16th Century. The second theory is that the name came from France, maybe changing from du Roz. The links on the left will give you more detail.
The debate is a good natured one. David Durose is the 'champion' of the 'Out of France' theory and Terry Haslam Jones for the linguistic theory. Notes ammounting to academic works from David and Terry may be found in the link the left.
Distribution
See also - Durose Places on this web site
The highest concentration of Duroses in the World is in the East and West Midlands of England in the United Kingdom.
The following information is from the Public Profiler http://www.publicprofiler.org/
Area Name ....................................Frequency Per Million
West Midlands, United Kingdom.............................73.46
East Midlands, United Kingdom .............................56.27
Rodney District, New-Zealand ................................30.37
North West, United Kingdom .................................22.26
British Colombia, Canada......................................20.37
Yorkshire and Humberside, United Kingdom ............17
Minnesota, United States.......................................11.4
Hamilton City, New-Zealand ..................................10.65
South West, United Kingdom...................................9.56
Bretagne, France....................................................9.56
World Distribution
European Distribution
French Distribution