In this issue:

New subscribers to the newsletter

Kristin Terry
Kristin is a great-great-granddaughter of the Edward Gurr who emigrated to New Zealand and founded the New Zealand branch of our family. Kristin lives in Tauranga, New Zealand.

Steve Gurr
Steve is a member of the newly discovered American branch of our family tree - see below.

Origins of the "Gurr" name

Since the last newsletter, I've heard from several correspondents who have produced some interesting theories on the origins of the "Gurr" name. I've detailed them here:
German/Austrian
There's evidence that the name "Gurre" was applied as a nickname to German and Austrian clerics and then became a surname. "Gurre" is an old-German word meaning "old mare", the typical mode of transport for clerics of the period. Some credence to this theory is given in finding the names "Gurre" and "Gurr" in some archived family trees in Wurtemburg in Germany in the early 17th century, and also my own experiences in finding some of our own ancestors spelling their name "Gurre".

Scandinavian
There's a Danish/Norwegian surname "Gard". Gard = farm, pronounced like gar (gahr). Danish: gaard or gård, pronounced like (Al) Gore. Danish spelling was much used in Norway before 1900.

Norman Conquest

There's an old-French word "guerrier" meaning warrior or foot soldier. The guerriers accompanied the William the Conqueror to England from Normandy and faught in the battle of Hastings in 1066. As a reward for their service William granted captured land to them and they remained in the East Sussex/Kent area.
There's probably no feasible way of identifying which of these is the most likely, short of a large number of us having DNA blood tests to identify our geographic origins. The last one is the most appealing though ... take a look at a reproduction of the Bayeux tapestry ... you might be looking at one of our ancestors!

George Gurr in Melbourne, 1860-1865

With the aim of trying to find out more detail about the experiences and travels of my great-great-grandfather, George Gurr (born in Chatham in 1834), I bought a second-hand copy of a now out-of-print book which covers the period he spent in Melbourne, Victoria. There's some fascinating detail which I'll expand on in "Places" section of the website over time, and some pictures which I may be legally able to scan in.

I'm also trying to track down any journals or diaries of emigrants from the UK to Australia or New Zealand of the period. This should also prove interesting to those in the New Zealand branch of the family.

American Gurrs

Back in the newsletter from December 2000 , I introduced Barbara West as a new subscriber to the newsletter and mentioned her husband Harold's role in the possible American branch of the family. >From a chance lookup in an online database, I think I've found the missing piece of the jigsaw.

Barbara had traced Harold's ancestry back to a George Gurr born in Cobham, Kent on the 10th March 1824 (this date from his American marriage certificate) and his father Thomas, born about 1780 somewhere in England (the date of 1780 was calculated from his reported age at death). This was a possible match for the Thomas Gurr born 1773 in Chatham in our tree, and was made more likely by the fact that both Barbara's tree and ours had Thomas' wife's name as Martha.

I'd also subsequently heard from Steve Gurr in Washington, Harold's cousin, who provided further corroborating information.

The final piece of the jigsaw was when I found an entry in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) for the baptism of a George Gurr in Meopham on 27th March 1824. Meopham is just a few miles from Cobham, and the baptism is a fortnight or so after the recorded birth, so it's as likely  as we ever get in family history that the two George Gurrs are one and the same.

To set it in context, Harold and Steve's great-great-great-grandfather Thomas was the brother of the John Gurr who served on the 1820 Chatham Fire Relief Comittee with Charles Dickens' father (and who also owned an Inn and other property in Chatham), and the brother of the William Gurr whose widow Mary founded the butcher's shop dynasty in Chatham that was passed down through four generations.

Thomas, his wife Martha and their only son George must have left England sometime between 1824 and 1845. In 1845 George bought 40 acres of land in LaSalle County, Illinois. George married in 1853. Their descendants lived in Washington, California, Oklahoma, Nevada (in fact Las Vegas) and Illinois.

Today, Steve is the last male Gurr in the line descending through five generations from Thomas Gurr (b. 1773 Chatham).

Wills & Probate

Whilst the Public Record Office (PRO) have made a complete pig's ear out of the project to make the 1901 Census available online, at the same time they've quietly and competently made a whole series of wills available. I stumbled across this recently, and after a quick search for any "Gurrs" found two individuals of interest.

The records are from the Pregrogative Court of Canterbury and are scans of the handwritten copies of the orginal will that would have been made at the time of granting probate.

Firstly I found records for the same William Gurr (1761-1821) referred to above. You can see a scan of the original probate copy , or read a MS-Word transcription . Essentially William leaves everything he owns to his widow, Mary.

More interesting is Elizabeth Gurr (?-1846). She was the widow of the John Gurr mentioned above - William's brother and member of the Chatham Fire committee. Again, you can see a scan of the original probate copy or read a MS-Word transcription . This is a far more interesting document.

Apart from mentioning a large number of relatives, she specifically leaves to her sister-in-law Mary (and her son John) the property in Chatham High Street that they had been occupying. This seems to be the butcher's shop itself. It was through Elizabeth's bequest that this branch of the family tree were able to gain enough financial security to run a successful butchery business. There's also specific bequests for all of Mary's other children too.

I'd been unable to find any records of John and Elizabeth having any offspring, and none are mentioned in her will. Instead, she bequeaths everything to her brother, her sister-in-law and her nieces and nephews. Elizabeth is recorded in directories of 1838 and 1840 as living in St. Margaret's Bank, Rochester under the listings for "Gentry", and was most certainly very wealthy.

Her will makes reference to her late husband's will and grant of probate. The documents for this period will be available from the PRO later this year, and John's will may provide further information on the family and the nature of his businesses and wealth.


--
David Gurr
Hemel Hempstead, UK
Gurr Family History at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gurrs/