In England the RUBERRY surname belongs to one of three trees. These are the RUBERRY Family of Cornwall, the RUBERRY Family of London and a variant branch of ROWBERRY Tree One which begins with a Richard who was baptised at Greet, Shropshire in 1798. His father had moved there from Thornbury, Herefordshire sometime around 1790. As so often happens when someone with the name ROWBERRY moves to an area where the name is not familiar, the names of the rest of his family varied exceedingly in their subsequent baptismal registrations. RUBRY, RUBRY, ROWBOROUGH, ROWBERY, and ROWBERRY they are entered. Although by the time his last child was baptised the name was recorded "correctly" when his children appear later in the registers being married or buried the name is given variously as REWBERRY, REWBERRY and REWBURY with the odd RUBERY and other variation thrown in. In all but Richard's family the name gradually settled down to become REWBURY today.

After his marriage Richard moved to Shobdon in Herefordshire, where surprisingly his family established the surname RUBERRY, with one later descendant becoming the source of the variant RUBBERY. However the name does not appear much in this western part of the county, and so perhaps it was as unfamiliar here as it had been over the border. Or maybe the name became established because that was what he had been married as, and therefore it was believed to be the correct spelling.

Branches of these three families have spread out all over the world, but in the USA two further families are found. One based in Baltimore, Maryland and the other in Chicago, Illinois they both had their origins in Ireland. There are other families originating from Ireland, but today they use the name RUBERY. Undoubtedly they all have a common origin, but with the paucity of Irish records before the twentieth century, it is difficult to tie them up.

The most interesting thing is that there is a RUBERRY family in Northern Ireland (Ulster) today which I at first thought must belong to the original Irish branch. However further research has established that it is part of the ROWBERRY Tree One branch discussed above!

Another interesting fact is that the name RUBERRY first appears in the USA in the 1700s, in Charleston, South Carolina. Although the name persisted as a forename, so far as I know it did not survive as a surname. Further research may prove me wrong on this. There are in fact quite a few RUBERRYs in the USA who I have yet to fit into any of my trees.

The following table gives the key to the five tree files representing the five modern RUBERRY branches. Click on the codes to go to the tree and learn more about each family:

PLEASE NOTE: At the moment only the first and fourth links work!