First found in Lancashire where they were seated from very ancient times. The Gerrard family name, also spelled Gerard and Jarrard, is traced by historians to the grandson of Edward the Confessor (1004-1066). In England the name was first recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086.

For many English families, the political and religious disarray that shrouded England made the far away New World an attractive prospect. On cramped disease-ridden ships, thousands migrated to those British colonies that would eventually become Canada and the United States. Those hardy settlers that survived the journey often went on to make important contributions to the emerging nations in which they landed. Analysis of immigration records indicates that some of the first North American immigrants bore the name Garrard or a variant listed above: Richard Gerrard, who landed in Maryland in 1634; Gilbert Gerrard, who settled in Virginia in 1643; Elizabeth Gerrard, who came to Maryland in 1650; Susan Gerrard, who arrived in Barbados in 1686.

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