Show ContentsWoreby History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Woreby is an ancient Norman name that arrived in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Woreby family lived in "Verboys, near Rouen, Normandy. This family gave its name to Warbois or Warboys, formerly spelt Wardeboys, a considerable village on the high road from Huntingdon to Ramsey." [1]

Early Origins of the Woreby family

The surname Woreby was first found in Cambridgeshire, formerly Huntingdonshire where it is now a large parish and village. The village dates back to pre-Conquest times where the first listing was Weardebusc in 974. Literally the place name probably means "bush of a man called Wearda" having derived from the Old English personal name + busc. [2]

By the time of the Domesday Book, the lands were held listed as lands of St. Benedict of Ramsey. Looking back further, the family was originally derived from Verbois, near Rouen in Normandy. [3] [4]

"Walter Wardebois is mentioned in the county as early as 1199. (Rotuli Curiae Regis.) Geoffrey de Wardbois, a townsman of Cambridge, was 'charged with having joined in the great riot against the Master and Scholars of the University' in 1322." [1]

Early History of the Woreby family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Woreby research. Another 69 words (5 lines of text) covering the years 1200, 1261, 1825, 1846 and 1887 are included under the topic Early Woreby History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Woreby Spelling Variations

Anglo-Norman names tend to be marked by an enormous number of spelling variations. This is largely due to the fact that Old and Middle English lacked any spelling rules when Norman French was introduced in the 11th century. The languages of the English courts at that time were French and Latin. These various languages mixed quite freely in the evolving social milieu. The final element of this mix is that medieval scribes spelled words according to their sounds rather than any definite rules, so a name was often spelled in as many different ways as the number of documents it appeared in. The name was spelled Warboy, Warboyse, Warboise, Wardboys, Gardboys, Garboys, Worboy, Worboys and many more.

Early Notables of the Woreby family

Outstanding amongst the family at this time was Emma Jane Warboise (1825-1887), author, the eldest child of George Baddeley Worboise and his wife, Maria Lane (her father property in Birmingham), was born in Birmingham on 20 April 1825. She early developed a strong turn for story writing, and by the time she was twenty had amassed a large quantity of manuscripts both prose and poetry...
Another 65 words (5 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Woreby Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Woreby family

Because of the political and religious discontent in England, families began to migrate abroad in enormous numbers. Faced with persecution and starvation at home, the open frontiers and generally less oppressive social environment of the New World seemed tantalizing indeed to many English people. The trip was difficult, and not all made it unscathed, but many of those who did get to Canada and the United States made important contributions to the young nations in which they settled. Some of the first North American settlers with Woreby name or one of its variants: the name represented in many forms and recorded from the mid 17th century in the great migration from Europe. Migrants settled in the eastern seaboard from Newfoundland, to Maine, to Virginia, the Carolinas, and to the islands..



  1. Cleveland, Dutchess of The Battle Abbey Roll with some Account of the Norman Lineages. London: John Murray, Abermarle Street, 1889. Print. Volume 3 of 3
  2. Mills, A.D., Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Print. (ISBN 0-19-869156-4)
  3. The Norman People and Their Existing Descendants in the British Dominions and the United States Of America. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1975. Print. (ISBN 0-8063-0636-X)
  4. Lower, Mark Anthony, Patronymica Britannica, A Dictionary of Family Names of the United Kingdom. London: John Russel Smith, 1860. Print.


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