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| Origins Available: |
| | England |
Helsy is a name whose history is connected to the ancient Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain. The name is derived from when the Helsy family once lived in the county of Devon in an area that was near the hazel-trees. Helsy is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, church, or type of tree.
The surname Helsy was first found in Surrey where they held a family seat from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Helsy research. Another 82 words (6 lines of text) covering the years 1708, 1839, 1920 and 1927 are included under the topic Early Helsy History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Sound was what guided spelling in the essentially pre-literate Middle Ages, so one person's name was often recorded under several variations during a single lifetime. Also, before the advent of the printing press and the first dictionaries, the English language was not standardized. Therefore, spelling variations were common, even among the names of the most literate people. Known variations of the Helsy family name include Halsey, Hallsey and others.
Notables of the family at this time include Sir Thomas Frederick Halsey, 1st Baronet PC (1839-1927), an English politician; and John Halsey (died 1708) was a colonial American privateer and a later pirate who was active in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans during the early 18th century. According to Forbes, he was the eighth highest earning pirate...
Another 57 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Helsy Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, Canada, the America colonies, and many of smaller tropical colonies in the hope of finding better lives abroad. Although the passage on the cramped, dank ships caused many to arrive in the New World diseased and starving, those families that survived the trip often went on to make valuable contributions to those new societies to which they arrived. Early immigrants bearing the Helsy surname or a spelling variation of the name include: