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Some notes from David

Full article
... from David Durose

...from over the channel

In all branches of the Durose family there are rumours of French origins. If that's the case though, how did we pitch up in North Staffordshire, and why is the name a... bit English? There's lots of circumstantial evidence to link the name to some important families in the area, and to the Lords of Bramshall in history.

The name sounds French, and it might be. There's circumstantial evidence that we're all Bretons and helped out Henry Tudor's men...

David Durose of Lancaster has researched this theory for many years, and the content of this page is from his work. He has said that "the most probable link to Brittany is Ollivier du Ros, who was under 21 in 1481, the son of Jean and Catherine de Qulibignon. Unlike his other children he has left no trace after 1485 and he was related to Robert Willoughby (Lord of Bramshall) through his mother". However, David's work is ongoing. Read more about it below, or link to his full document at the bottom of the page.

The Duroses in France - by David Durose

By David Durose, Lancaster, July 2010

I had always been curious about the origin of the surname Durose, which seems to be French. My father died when I was 13 and his father when I was quite small. I can only remember meeting my grandfather two or three times, so there was no family history handed down from them. They were born and brought up in the Oldham area of Lancashire and apart from my father’s brother I was not aware of any other Durose relatives.

I can remember that there was a county cricketer (Northants) and a Scotland Yard detective with the name, who were in the newspapers when I was at school.

I once spoke to a lady called Savary, who told me that her name was that of a Huguenot family – one of the thousands of protestant refugees, who had such an impact on Britain in the 17th and 16th centuries. She said that my name was probably of the same origin and I had always assumed this to be true until recently.

With the advent of the Internet, the interest in family history and genealogy expanded and I found and joined a message board that connected people who were interested in the research of their Durose ancestors.

The Duroses were spread out throughout the English-speaking world: North America, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. They all traced their families back to England, rather than France and had different stories for the origins of their family, which all turned out to be wrong. In fact, one researcher had found a Durose in the telephone directory in Paris and called him – only to find that he was English.

Image from Public Profiler

The family researchers had studied parish registers and other sources and I was able to bring together the information they had gathered:
• the Duroses who could trace their families back far enough all ended up in the small area around Uttoxeter – in the villages of Bramshall, Leigh or Milwich;
• the family had been - and still are - land owners in the area for many years at least as far back as the 1500s;
• the name does not feature in the standard work on French surnames, although there are quite a number that are similar.

One researcher had read the VCH (Victoria County History) for Staffordshire and reported an interesting entry – a person called William Deuros had been given accommodation at St Thomas’s (Abbey?) in Stafford at the request of the Crown in 1535. He was described as an aged and infirm royal servant.

This turned out to be a false clue as the person was William de Ros (and the year should have been 1315), who died a year later at the sister Abbey of Kirkham, near his Yorkshire estate. However, it did give an accidental clue to the probable date and reason for the first Durose having come to England – the Durose ‘ancestor’.

The Huguenot theory was already looking unlikely, because Staffordshire was not an area for their immigration, neither was the farming community.

I was starting to think that there could be Norman links, since most English people with French surnames are either Huguenot or Norman. I wondered about links to the de Ros family and one person with whom I exchanged information thought I might be a variant of Devereaux. I discounted both of these ideas for various reasons.

I was thinking that the origin of the name would remain a mystery, when I saw a program on TV, presented by Professor Richard Holmes, about the battle of Bosworth (1485). He said that Henry Tudor’s army was mainly French – so I began to wonder if this could be the explanation and so I read a history book about the period.

Henry Tudor had been in exile in Brittany, so I began looking in that area and to try looking into some French web sites. One said that the name had its origin in the Armorican coast and it was a variant of Duros.

I found a Daniel Duros of Dinan, who had published his family tree on the Internet and he told me that the family had once been important in Brittany and that it had a connection with the town of Lanildut.

Lanildut turned out to be only a few miles from the place where Henry Tudor was shipwrecked (le Conquet), so I thought I might be on the right lines. The town has an active local history circle, which has been very helpful in providing information. I also found a discussion group onYahoo in France concerning the Breton Nobility, through which I made contact with a lady called Yvette le Stanc-Roussin, who has been studying her family history for many years and has du Ros ancestors on both maternal and paternal sides.

read the full account in the word document link