Oxenbury

Recorded as Oxborough, Oxborrow, Oxbrow, Oxburgh, Oxbury, Oxenbury and possibly others, is medieval English. It is locational from a place in Norfolk now called Oxborough but as Oxenburgh in the famous Domesday Book of 1086. The derivation is from the pre 7th Century word "oxan", and "burg" a fort; hence the fort where oxen or male cattle, were kept. This may well not have been a fort in the sense of a stone building with a keep and battlements, but a defensive earth ring, probably thickly planted with a hedge and brambles. The surname from this source was first recorded in the latter part of the 13th Century, (see below) and the name is particularly well recorded in the surviving church registers of South Eastern England. These recordings taken at random include that on February 21st 1563 of John Oxeberie, who was christened at Lavenham in Suffolk, whilst on December 11th 1569, Margaret Oxborrow and William Car were married at Swaffham in Norfolk. Betherise Oxborough married a William Nicholes in Fincham, Norfolk, on August 27th 1591, and on January 7th 1765, Mary Oxenberry and Issac Field were married at the church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, in the city of London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Oxeburg. This was dated 1275, in the the Hundred Rolls of landowners of Norfolk, during the reign of King Edward 1st, known as "The Hammer of The Scots", 1272 - 1307. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.