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Pursley is a name whose history is connected to the ancient Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain. The name is derived from when the Pursley family once lived in Purslow, in Shropshire. The place-name is derived from the Old English personal name Pussa and the Old English word hlaw. A hlaw is a burial mound; in Modern English the word for a burial mound is tumulus, which is derived from Latin. The place-name as a whole means "burial mound of a man named Pussa."
The surname Pursley was first found in Shropshire at Purslow, a hamlet that dates back to the Domesday Book where it was listed as Possalau. The place name is derived from the Old English words personal name + hlaw, and literally means "tumulus (mound of earth and stones) of a man called Pussa." 1 Of interest is a certain Robert Parslow. " It is traditionally said that a military chest of money was left at the house of Robert Parslow, in the town [of Watlington in Oxfordshire], and never afterwards claimed, in consequence of which he bequeathed a liberal donation to the poor of the parish." 2
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Pursley research. Another 61 words (4 lines of text) covering the years 1500, 1533, 1558, 1559, 1563 and 1579 are included under the topic Early Pursley 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 Pursley family name include Purslow, Purseglove, Purselove, Pursley, Pursly and others.
Another 50 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Pursley Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
In the United States, the name Pursley is the 7,805th most popular surname with an estimated 2,487 people with that name. 3
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 Pursley surname or a spelling variation of the name include: