Happy January! In my part of the world, we have experienced a lot of snow, a lot of cold and now a lot of rain – it is regular January weather! I hope you’re staying warm and dry enjoying the real winter we seem to be experiencing.

If you’re looking for our regular “Who Shares Your Birthday” post, there will not be one this month – I’m sorry.  I have not been able to find someone of interest in the family trees to do a story on that has a birthday in January.  Hopefully, throughout 2022, we can find someone.

That does not mean we cannot wish those in our family that have birthdays this month. Happy birthday to my niece Nichelle (5th), my nephew Taylor (today!), my great-nephew Levi (13th), my cousin, Mike (27th) and my sister Cris (29th). Whew, there are a lot of birthdays in January!  I’m sorry I wasn’t able to find a relative of interest to write about but keep your fingers crossed for next year!

So, instead of our regular monthly birthday instalment, I thought I would give a little insight into the Briggs family name; it’s origin and meaning.

Briggs – what does it mean? Where does it come from? Where do I come from? Well, those are real life questions; they are the life questions that are much easier to answer than, “What is the meaning of life?”.

I did a DNA test through Ancestry.ca. It revealed the following:

If you think the origin of the Briggs surname comes from England, you would be wrong! The earliest variant of the Briggs surname originates from Norway.  As you can see from my DNA results, I do have 4% Norwegian DNA.  Likely, if I was able to research that far back (still trying!!) we will find a Briggs line that would originate from Norway. History shows, there has been many instances of migrations from the Scandinavian sub-region of  Northern Europe (includes Norway, Denmark and Sweden) into Great Britain as early as the 9^th century.

When it comes to my family tree, my father’s side of the family mostly came from England. This includes the Briggs, Matthew, Hartford and Press tree branches. My mother’s side comes mostly from France and some from England. This is the reason for the high percentage coming from England as there are more lines from there.

The Briggs surname originates from Norway with instances occurring in England and Scotland. It is one form of the surname Bridges. Other surname forms are Brydges, Brigge, Bryggja, Brycg along with several other different spellings of Briggs. The surname Briggs is classified as a Northern English surname found mainly in West Yorkshire.

Briggs can have one of two meanings:

1. “Dweller By the Bridge”, live by or near a bridge (topographical)
2. “Bridge Keeper”; building and maintaining bridges, protector (occupational)

A “topographical” surname is given to those who live on or near a certain man-made or natural phenomenon that was found in the land.  In this case, the topographical location was that of a bridge.

This surname of Briggs in the topographical and occupational sense was used for someone who lived near a bridge, or someone who was a bridge keeper; building and maintaining bridges. In the Middle Ages, maintaining a bridge was one of the three main feudal obligations.

This history of the Briggs name can be found as far back as 1205. This person’s name was recorded as “William de Bruges”. The name was mentioned in a document referred to as the Curia Regis Rolls of Oxfordshire, a document which was ordered, decreed and written under the reign of King John of England who ruled from 1199 to 1216.

Another instance of a recording of a variant of the surname Briggs is that of Gilbert atte Brigge, recorded in the 1272 Pipe Rolls of Surrey.

A famous Briggs found in England was one Henry Briggs (1561-1630), who was a Professor of Astronomy, and published many of the early books of astral navigation. Not sure if he’s part of our family line but a important name in history books.

There are also instances of the Briggs name in Scotland that can be found in the county of Aberdeenshire and were referred to as the bricklayers.  So far, there has been no connection of Briggs ancestors in Scotland, only that of the Irving line.

I hope this has given you an insight into the Briggs name.  If you anything to add to this, please feel free to post a comment – I really enjoy reading them!!