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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Berkshire => Topic started by: RobertHauteville on Thursday 08 February 24 13:31 GMT (UK)
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The Curtis family can be found at Sutton Courtenay from the earliest PRs until more recent times but does anyone know their origin? A William Courteys was living at Sutton as early as 1373 (under #296 ROGER SON OF RICHARD DE STANLAK @ https://www.british-history.ac.uk/inquis-post-mortem/vol13/pp255-272 (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/inquis-post-mortem/vol13/pp255-272) but did they come over from France with the Courtenay family in the C12th? The Curtis name can be found in various early Norman and Gascon records.
Also were the Sutton Curtis linked to:-
* Lord John Curteys, Master of St Johns Hospital @ Wallingford in 1383 (#762 Boarstall Cartulary)
* John Curters, Groom of Queen Isabella's Spicery in 1311/12 (Household Book of Queen Isabella)
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P.H. Reaney in his Dictionary of English Surnames gives a few 12th century references to Curtis and variants, in English counties, from Pipe Rolls, etc..
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Thanks. Were any in the Berks/Oxon area?
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No.
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Thanks.
The earlyish English Curtis families I have seen come from:-
- Cornwall
- Gloucs/Oxon border
- Sutton Courtenay
- East Anglia
I guess the Gloucs/Oxon & Sutton Courtenay may be the same due to proximity. As the Courtenay family settled in both Cornwall and Sutton Courtenay perhaps the Curtises of both are also linked?
Also, about 80% of early Curtis records are for "le Curtis/Courteis", etc but about 20% are for "de Curtis/Courteis". Two different orgins for the same modern name or clerical errors?
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There are legal records (King's Bench, Common Pleas, Chancery, etc.) indexed on WAALT (Wiki for Anglo-American Legal Tradition). The indexes go back to the 14th century while the earliest unindexed images of documents are from about 1200 (http://aalt.law.uh.edu/IndexPri.html ). If you search for Curteys or Courteys you will find hundreds: 170 indexes containing Curteys, each with multiple items. They are from all across England, Cornwall to Norfolk, so I think this surname must have had multiple origins.
https://waalt.uh.edu/index.php/Main_Page
I did find one from Sutton Courteney, from 1437.
Index:
https://waalt.uh.edu/index.php/CP40/705
Original, second item:
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT1/H6/CP40no705/aCP40no705fronts/IMG_0439.htm
In Easter term 1437 Thomas Bekynton, clerk, was suing John Curteys, of Sutton Courteney, laborer, for trespass breach of close at Sutton Courteney and taking goods and chattels worth 40 shillings.
There may be more from Sutton Courteney, but I didn't check them all.
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There are also some in "The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1381" by Carolyn C. Fenwick, volume 1, page 51.
1381 assessment, Sutton Hundred, Sutton Courteney with Sutton Wick and Hawkridge:
John Curteys, Agnes his wife: 2 shillings
William Curteys, Agnes his wife: 2 shillings
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Thanks Vance,
The charming [!!!] 1373, 47 Edw III, CIPM entry for "Roger son of Richard de Stanlak, an idiot" mentions that Isabel widow of Richard remarried William Courteys of Sutton Courteneye
and Parliamentary Writs list William Curtis as manucaptor of Thomas Bone, Burgess of Wallingford back in 1318.
It seems they were in the area for at least 500 years..
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Incidentally, the usual explanation for the Curtis surname is that it was given to someone that was courteous and a lot of early Curtis records are listed as "le Courteis" or similar. But others are listed as "de Courteys", etc so they may not all have the same origin.
As pronunciation changed with time is it possible that "Courteney" changed to a "Courteneys" and then to a "Courteys"?
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Great to see a new discussion on CURTIS (and variant spellings) of Sutton Courtenay. I come from a very long line of CURTIS's, my nephew being the most recent and 14th generation of the documented line going back John CURTIS b abt 1526 d 1586 and his wife Ann GLOVER (1525-1579) John was the son of Margaret who died in 1552 (husband unknown), and had a brother in law William CURTIS (1506-1564) who was married to Alice 1590-1563. I've just been reviewing the little book "Sutton Courtenay - The History of a Thames-side Village" (by John Fletcher, pub 1990, now out of print) and pulled out a reference to a man another 250 or so years earlier than my tree goes: Reginald CORTYS, who was one of the 12 freemen jurors called upon in 1274 "to provide on oath the facts about the value of the manor of Sutton after John Courtenay died". Thomas CURTIS (1736-1813, married to Elizabeth GRAHAM) of the Upend farm (his name appears on the 1804 enclosure map) was my 3ggrandfather. I've just got my nephew to do a BigY DNA test at familytreedna, and will also be getting my brother to do the same, so that will give us the full genetic signature (genetic mutation history) for our line, and make it easier to see where other lines branch off at common ancestors. It would be incredibly interesting if there were any other direct line male descendants of any Curtis family from Sutton Courtenay. My mum researched this family in great detail for many years (from the 1970's), corresponding with a 3rd cousin of my father in the pre-internet days, and I took over the research about 20 years ago. I have to admit that neither she nor I found any other living male Curtis descendants from Sutton Courtenay who we couldn't confirm were connected to our line. I'd like to be proved wrong and find a line that has a common ancestor even further back than we know off. Please PM me if you want to share your tree and try to find a connection. The basic tree outline from my mother's research has been uploaded to my surname study (Sennett/Sinnott ) website. The Sennett side only connects through me and my mother, but you can still use the name search for Curtis names and follow family links. https://sennett.one-name.net/
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"Excalibur" crest - just out of interest has anyone got any connection to a Curtis family who might use what in our family was called an "excalibur" crest? (bent armoured arm, holding sword, coming out of water/lake) - This made its appearance in our family a good number of generations ago on a large set of silver cutlery, which has been split up over several generations to the point where any descendants now only have a couple of pieces. Mum could never quite pin down who had it first. I strongly suspect there was no direct entitlement to use this crest, but somewhere, someone in our family decided to start using it on the family silver. I don't have a piece right here to look at, but it is somewhat similar to the one in this link https://www.myfamilysilver.com/pages/crestfinder-crest.aspx?id=142909&name=Curtis
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Thanks. Were any in the Berks/Oxon area?
Reginald Cortys, a freeman, living in 1274 (one of 12 sutton residents called upon as jurors to provide on oath the facts about the value of the manor of Sutton after John Courtenay died.
I got this info from "Sutton Courtenay - The History of a Thames-Side Village" by John Fletcher (pub 1990, out of print). The source quoted was P.R.O., C 133/6, no 1.
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Hi corinne, can't help on the DNA front although am pretty sure quite a few of the Sutton Curtises headed east towards London and were still there c.1900.
regarding "Reginald Cortys, a freeman, living in 1274", were the Sutton Curtises related to the Curtis family living on the Gloucs/Berks/Oxon border? I think they had a Reginald Curtis c.1400 who was a wool exporter and had many ships and helped transport the army that went to Agincourt?
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I haven't yet been able to link any of my Sutton Curtis's to any other Berks/Oxon families, but still interested in working on it. Our lot did go to London - John Curtis, 1766-1823, only child of Thomas and Elizabeth nee GRAHAM) was I think the first to be born in London, and from there the next generation started to disperse a little more.