Weatherup

This is apparently an Anglo-Irish surname and centered on County Antrim, Ireland. It is one which is rarely, if ever recorded in England, and does not seem to appear in the registers of the city of London at all. This is a rare event for almost any surname, and particularly one of the British Isles. It would seem to be locational from a place called Weatherup or Wetherup, and there is a "locality" in the county of Suffolk called Wetherup Street, which was possibly the former site of a medieval village of the same name. Wetherup Street is some two miles from the small town of Debenham. Roads in England called "street" such as the well known Watling Street or Ermine Street, generally refer to a former Roman road, and this may be the case here. Place names commencing with "we(a)ther" refer not to "The weather" but to sheep, as in the town of Wetherby, meaning the sheep farm. In this case we think that Weatherup refers to a sheep farm or pasture land on a hill top, although it must be said that Suffolk is not well known for its hills! In the past when people left their original homesteads to move somewhere else, they often took or were given as their surname, the name of their former village. Examples of surviving recordings include Margaret Weatherup who married Thomas Boyd at Ballynure, on September 16th 1845 and Jane Weatherup baptised at Carrickfergus, on May 20th 1867, both County Antrim, Northern Ireland.