Kingrey History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
England
Ireland
Scotland

The ancient Anglo-Saxon culture once found in Britain is the soil from which the many generations of the Kingrey family have grown. The name Kingrey was given to a member of the family who was a person who lived and acted like a king. It is derived from the Old English cyning or cyng, meaning "king," and was probably first bestowed as a nickname upon someone who was kingly in personality or appearance, or perhaps to someone who had played the king in a pageant.

As one source notes, it is curious that the name "Queen" is not as popular as it should be given the similar importance of the title in ancient times. 1

Early Origins of the Kingrey family

The surname Kingrey was first found in Devon, where the name was first found about 1050. 2 Geoffrey King brought the name to Cheshire in 1177 and by 1273 John King had established lands and estates in the county of Norfolk as evidenced by John le Kyng who was listed in the Hundredorum Rolls of Norfolk at that time. The Hundredorum Rolls also lists Walter le Kyng in Cambridgeshire. 1

Regional distribution of the name is interesting. "Mostly confined south of a line drawn from the Wash to the southern border of Shropshire. North of this line the name rapidly diminishes in frequency, being absent from my list in nearly all the counties thus marked off. It is rare also in the extreme south - west, in Devon and Cornwall. It is best represented in Beds, Bucks, Suffolk, and Wilts. The name is sparingly represented in Scotland." 3

In Scotland, it was "a surname of some antiquity and still met with in many parts of the country, Berwick, Fife, and Aberdeen. The first of the name recorded in Aberdeenshire is "Robertus dictus King" who bequeathed to the prior and convent of St. Andrews land in that shire which was the subject of a convention in 1247 between his brother's daughter, Goda, and the prior and convent." 4

Early History of the Kingrey family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Kingrey research. Another 110 words (8 lines of text) covering the years 1247, 1421, 1432, 1467, 1500, 1503, 1592, 1600, 1606, 1611, 1621, 1637, 1648, 1659, 1660, 1661, 1663, 1669, 1676, 1679, 1681, 1688, 1706, 1712, 1717, 1797 and 1890 are included under the topic Early Kingrey History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Kingrey 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 Kingrey family name include King, Kings and others.

Early Notables of the Kingrey family

Distinguished members of the family include Oliver King (c.1432-1503) was a Bishop of Exeter and Bishop of Bath and Wells who restored Bath Abbey after 1500; Robert King LL.D. (1600-1676), an English jurist and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge; John King (died 1621), Bishop of London in the Church of England from 1611 to 1621; Henry King (1592-1669), an English poet and bishop; Edward King (c. 1606-1681), an English lawyer and politician, Member of Parliament for Grimsby (1660) and supporter of the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War...
Another 89 words (6 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Kingrey Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Kingrey family to Ireland

Some of the Kingrey family moved to Ireland, but this topic is not covered in this excerpt.
Another 108 words (8 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 Kingrey family

For political, religious, and economic reasons, thousands of English families boarded ships for Ireland, the Canadas, 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 Kingrey surname or a spelling variation of the name include : Samuel King, who landed at Plymouth in 1620; Daniel King, who came to Lynn, Massachusetts in 1630; Allin and Alice King, who settled in Virginia in 1635.

Citations +

Bardsley, C.W, A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames: With Special American Instances. Wiltshire: Heraldry Today, 1901. Print. (ISBN 0-900455-44-6)
Reaney, P.H and R.M. Wilson, A Dictionary of English Surnames. London: Routledge, 1991. Print. (ISBN 0-415-05737-X)
Guppy, Henry Brougham, Homes of Family Names in Great Britain. 1890. Print.
Black, George F., The Surnames of Scotland Their Origin, Meaning and History. New York: New York Public Library, 1946. Print. (ISBN 0-87104-172-3)