Ancestors by Country
The countries of origin which have immigrant ancestors represented in the Hill surname and related family trees are discussed here. Find tips on researching genealogy records for ancestors from specific countries.
Subcategories
- English Ancestry
- French Ancestry
- German Ancestry
- Irish Ancestry
- Italian Ancestry
- Polish Ancestry
- Russian Ancestry
- Scandinavian Ancestry
- Scottish Ancestry
Article Index:
Many of us have surnames passed down to us from ancestors in England. Last names weren’t widely used until after the Norman conquest in 1066, but as the country’s population grew, people found it necessary to be more specific when they were talking about somebody else. Thus arose descriptions like Thomas the Baker, Norman son of Richard, Henry the Whitehead, Elizabeth of the Field, and Joan of York that, ultimately, led to many of our current surnames.
There are perhaps 45,000 different English surnames, but most had their origins as one of these seven types.
In the 1700s, the settling of the British colonies by small German-speaking religious groups continued.
1804 - A Protestant group from Wuerttemberg, named Rappists after their leader George Rapp, founded Harmony, Pennsylvania, a utopian community.