Dougary

Recorded as Dougary, Dougarry, Duggary, Dugarry and possibly others, this is a rare surname. It is almost certainly French, although in the spelling of Dougary or Dougarry, there may be some later Irish or Irish-American influence. At sometime, as shown below, the surname passed through the British Isles and specifically Ireland, as a Huguenot Protestant 18th century emigree name, although it is now most popular, a relative term, in North America. The origin in France would seem to have been residential and to describe either a person who lived at a place called Gare, although we have not found such a place in the 17th century gazetters, or more likely some one who was 'du gare', meaning they lived at a gare or collection point, usually in the centre of a town. In later years 'gare' was used to describe a stage coach office, and later in Victorian times, a railway station, and later still a bus or tram station. Early recordings from France are rare as most registers were destroyed as instruments of the secret police, at the time of the famous or infamous Revolution of 1792. They were reinstated (as was the Roman Catholic church) by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801. From France the earliest recording that we have is that of Jean Marie Duggary who married Anne Marguerite Jolain at Pont St Vincent, Meurthe-et-Moselle, on November 29th 1802, although earlier in Ireland Prudence Dugeray as spelt, the daughter of Henry or Henri Dugeray, was christened at the church of St Peter and St Kevin, Dublin, on April 2nd 1753.