Charke History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

• Origins Available:
• England
• Ireland

Etymology of Charke

Charke is a name of ancient Anglo-Saxon origin and comes from the family once having lived near a church. The surname Charke is derived from the old English word cyrice, which is itself derived from the Late Greek word kyrikon, which means house of the Lord. 1 2

Charke therefore belongs to the class of topographic surnames, which were given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, church, or type of tree. The Aglish surname is only found in Ireland where it is one of the few times an English name has been translated into Irish (eaglais, pronounced aglish, Gaelic for a church)

Early Origins of the Charke family

Early History of the Charke family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Charke research. Another 122 words (9 lines of text) covering the years 1273, 1338, 1388, 1572, 1580, 1639, 1659, 1675, 1676, 1718, 1723, 1741, 1890 and 1903 are included under the topic Early Charke History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Charke 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 Charke family name include Church, Churche, Churchey, Aglish (Ireland) and others.

Early Notables of the Charke family

• William Charke (fl. 1580), was an English Puritan divine and a "distinguished as the opponent of Edmund Campion, the Jesuit priest, and as a leader of the puritan party. He was a fellow of Peterhouse...

Migration of the Charke family to Ireland

Some of the Charke family moved to Ireland, but this topic is not covered in this excerpt.
Another 277 words (20 lines of text) about their life in Ireland is included in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Charke family

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 Charke surname or a spelling variation of the name include: Richard Church who settled in Plymouth in the year 1630; who arrived in the fleet with Winthrop in 1630. He was admitted as a freeman of the Colony in 1633. He built the first Church of Dover in 1662. He was taken by Indians, escaped and was finally killed twenty years later by Indians in his own home. Richard Church settled in Virginia in 1630.