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Welcome to the website for

people interested in the surnames

GOMERY, GUMERY and GUMMERY

and variants:-

GOMORI, GOMORY, GUMMERE, and also historically GOMARY, GOMBERY, GOMBERRY, GOMBREY, GOMBRY, GOMBURY, GOMEREY, GOMEROY, GOMMERY, GOMREY, GOMRY, GOOMBERY, GOOMBURY, GUMARY, GUMBARY, GUMBERY, GUMBERRY, GUMBREY, GUMBRY, GUMBUREY, GUMBURY, GUMEREY, GUMMARY, GUMREY, GUMRY.

Only three of these variants seem to have survived into the 20th century in Britain:- GOMERY, GUMERY and GUMMERY. In addition, in the U.S.A. GOMORI, GOMORY and GUMMERE are extant.

From Family History to a One-Name Study

My interest was initially in the surnames of GOMERY and GUM(M)ERY in Woolhope, Herefordshire, where my great great grandmother Elizabeth GUMERY was born in 1795. While researching this family I noticed strange variations occurring in their surname as I worked my way backwards through the Woolhope parish registers.

The County Record Office in Hereford holds the Woolhope parish registers from 1561 for baptisms, 1559 for marriages and 1558 for burials. The earliest mention was the baptism of Edward, the son of Thomas and Elizabeth GOMBERRY on 3rd January 1691/92. Thomas and Elizabeth had nine children, and the earlier events are recorded as either "GOMBERRY" or "GOMBERY". Then from 1697 until 1709 the surname is entered in the parish register as "ROWBERY or GOMBERRY", and once as "ROWBERRY alias GOMMERY".

From 1710 the surnames GOMBERY/GOOMBURY and ROWBERY are used interchangeably, even varying between the parish registers and the Bishops Transcripts – being GOMBERY in one, and ROWBERY in the other. There is really no question of it being a variation in the handwriting of different clerics, as these entries are quite clearly written.

The early Woolhope parish registers have been transcribed and a note about the apparent interchangeability of these two surnames appears in the published version. By the 1800s the various families had settled on which variant of the surname they would continue to be known by - in the family of my ancestor Elizabeth, the GOMERY or GUMMERY, and sometimes even GUMERY, spellings became established.

From these beginnings began my international study of the GOMERY, GUMERY, GUMMERE and GUMMERY surnames together with their many spelling variations.

Database Searches

From this initial research, and because of the relatively small number of occurrences of these surnames, I formed a One-Name Study and registered it with the Guild of One-Name Studies in September 1998 (GOONS #3034). By registering with the Guild I undertook to collect all occurrences of these surnames internationally. This has resulted in the formation of two databases:-

-          British based database derived from a wide variety of sources, mainly featuring the GOMERY, GUMERY and GUMMERY surnames.

-          International database with references from the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, Hungary and Germany, mainly featuring the GUMMERE, GUMMERY, GOMERY, GOMORY and GOMORI surnames.

Please email me if you would like a database check made, giving as much information as possible to help identify the individual and family group.

The surname ROWBERRY and variants is also the subject of a One-Name Study.

URL=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gomery/
Last revised: 19 March 2012
© Linda Hansen 1999 - 2012