16th century records

[Sherilla63]

Hello,

I am trying to trace my 9 x Great Grandmother Clemens Amere. The only record I can find relates to her marriage to my 9 x Great Grandfather John Bridger on 30 Sep 1576 in Mereworth Kent. They had four children: Judith 1577, Joane 1580, John 1582 (my 8 x GG) & Katherine 1583.

There is a record on Ancestry that states that her father was a John Spicer from Lyminge in Kent, but the facts are a bit sparse and I can't make the connection to him from any other sources so I think that this is a red herring. From her name, I was thinking that maybe she was French, Belgian or Swiss, or even Italian, but I have hit a brick wall, so any help in going further would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Sherilla

[Rena]

I usually use the various familysearch distribution maps to get an idea where surnames were most likely to originate from, but not one of those distribution maps showed the surname "Amere"

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Surname_DistriI

I then used this below forebear distribution map and had some quite interesting results:-

https://forebears.io/surnames?q=Amere

It would be most unusual to find any British PARISH church records earlier than the mid 1500s.

Good luck 

[Vance Mead]

Amere is probably a form of Amery / Amerie / Amerye / Amory / Amore etc.

You will find some 16th century wills for Amery / Amerye in Kent here:
https://wills.canterbury-cathedral.org

And wills at Rochester here:
http://vulpeculox.net/history/kwills.htm

This index includes John Amere of Mereworth, in 1545, and John Amere of Dartford, in 1527.