Bears is a name whose history is connected to the ancient
Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain. The name is derived from when the Bears family once lived in
Devon, where they took their name from one of the many places named
Bear, Beare, Beara, etc., found in that county. The surname is likely to be derived from the Old English word
bearu, which means
grove. Several early instances of that name are in the form
le beare, or
the bear, from the Old English
bera.Early Origins of the Bears family
The surname Bears was first found in
Devon where there are two places on the banks of Tamar called Beer-Alston and Beer-Ferris. In
Dorset, place names include Beer- Hacket and Beer-Regis.
[1]CITATION[CLOSE]
Lowe, Mark Anthony, Patronymica Britannica, A Dictionary of Family Names of the United Kingdom. London: John Russel Smith, 1860. Print. The earliest reference of the name was in
Devon where it was listed as Bera in the
Domesday Book [2]CITATION[CLOSE]
Mills, A.D., Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Print. (ISBN 0-19-869156-4)
Early History of the Bears family
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Bears research.
Another 239 words (17 lines of text) covering the years 1207, 1684, 1354 and 1355 are included under the topic Early Bears History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Bears Spelling Variations
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 Bears family name include Beare, Bear, Beer, Bere, Beares, Bears, Beers and many more.
Early Notables of the Bears family (pre 1700)
Another 17 words (1 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Bears Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Migration of the Bears family to the New World and Oceana
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 Bears surname or a spelling variation of the name include: Christopher and Mary Bere, who settled on the eastern seaboard at a very early time with their two daughters Mary and Elizabeth. They settled in Georgia in the 17th century. Walter and Ann Beare settled in Virginia in 1620.