Rosslyn History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

The surname Rosslyn was first found in Lincolnshire where the surname is descended from the tenant of the lands of Rigsby, Rocelin, a Norman noble who held from the Archbishop of York who was recorded in the Domesday Book census of 1086. Rocelin was descended from Robertus the first settler granted the lands in 1066 by Duke William.

Robertus filius Rozelin, Rotselini is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. 1 As a forename, Rocelin de Riggesbi was mentioned c. 1150 in Lincolnshire. Later, Thomas Roscelin was found in the Assize Rolls for Gloucestershire in 1221 and later again, John Russelyn was listed in Yorkshire in 1316. In Cambridgeshire, Amycis Roslyn was listed in the Subsidy Rolls of 1327. 2

They are thought to be a "branch of the Carlovingian Viscounts of Maine and Beaumont. Roscelin the thin man (Homo Magri) is mentioned in the Norman Exchequer Rolls of 1198. The probable ancestor of the family in England was Rocel filius Osbert, who held five knights' fees of the barony of Hubert de Rie in 1165. William de Roscelyn, with whom the recorded pedigree commences, married the heiress of a Norman family that had held a considerable property in Norfolk from the time of the Conquest, and had taken the name of Edgefield or Edisfield from one of their manors. Sir Thomas, the next heir, in 1265 had free warren in all his demesne lands at Edisfield, Walcote, Norton, Heckingham, Drayton, Tasburgh, and Redlington, in Norfolk; and his son Sir Peter was summoned to parliament among the barons of the realm in 1293." 3