I have been researching my family history for more than 30 years but have only just identified one of my maternal great grandparents, thanks to DNA testing. My great grandmother Esther Bemand was one of 16 children from a family that had roots in the border area of Wales/England in the Montgomeryshire, Shropshire, Radnorshire, Worcestershire area. With large families the norm and limited numbers of forenames in use, I decided to start on this ONS in July 2021 as a way to try to sort out the family network. In the process of doing this I have become fascinated by the breadth of information available nowadays and am really looking forward to sharing my research.

In the UK, the following variants are most common – Bemond, Beamand, Beaumond, Bemmond, Beamond – always starting “Be” and ending in “nd”, and usually with a single “m”. Occasionally the surname Bemand is mis-transcribed as Bernard. By 2008, only the Beamond, Beaumond and Bemand variants were still in use.

Most surname dictionaries assume that the Bemand surname originates from the Norman locative name Beaumont (beautiful hill) but this variant has not been included in the current study.

However, many of the people in the UK in this study are from the Welsh borders area - Shropshire/Montgomeryshire. In this region it appears that the surname derives from the Welsh tradition of patronymics, i.e. Bedmond/Beamond deriving from 'ap Edmond'. A very interesting document in Shropshire Transactions Vol. 46 (1932), identifies the pedigrees of a number of Beamond pew-holders in Mainstone, Shropshire. This village is very close to the Welsh border and has a lot of 'ap' surnames for the earliest records of pew-holders. The Beamond surname appears to drop the 'ap' in the early 1600s.

2nd Lieutenant George Edward Kingsley Bemand (1892-1916) - possibly the first mixed race officer in the British Army. 

George was born in Jamaica on March 19^th 1892, the eldest of four children born to a white father, George, and a black mother, Minnie. He spent the early years of his life in Jamaica before, in 1908 Minnie and the children came, via New York, to England, where George Sr. was already working. During his time at Dulwich College he was a boarder in Ivyholme, and in his final year he was a member of the 2^nd XI cricket team. From the College he went on to University College London, where he studied engineering.

Shortly after war began he joined the London University O.T.C., and in May 1915 he was granted a commission in the Royal Field Artillery – making him very possibly the first person of colour, outside of India, ever to be granted such a position in the modern British Army. However he did claim to be 'white' on his application for a commission and appears to have been accepted as such. After finishing his training, he went out to France in November of 1915, and spent a year serving with the Ammunition Column, 148 Brigade. In October 1916 he was transferred to the Trench Mortar Battery, 5^th Division, and was still serving with them when he was killed by a shell hitting his dugout on Boxing Day 1916. His younger brother Harold, also studied at Dulwich Collegeand was a fellow member of the R.F.A., also fell.

[biographical summary from dulwichcollege1914-18.co.uk/fallen/bemand-gek/ ]

Quartermaster James Beamond of the 2nd Life Guards was one of the many members of the Heavy Cavalry that fell at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. A first hand account of the battle by Thomas Playford [1] describes how he was riding just 4 places to the right of James Beamond at the start of the battle, but did not see him fall.

James had 2 sons also in the 2nd Life Guards, serving as trumpeters at Waterloo - John aged 15 and Thomas age 17. They both survived the battle although Thomas had a lucky escape as described here - "A trumpeter-boy of the 2nd Life Guards, Thomas Beamond, was riding through the field when a cuirassier rushed at him, with his sword's point levelled at the boy's breast. Discovering he was a mere lad, the gallant Frenchman dropped his point, spared him, and passed on. Sad to relate, in sight of the poor boy, a comrade who had not witnessed the noble act of the cuirassier, fell upon him and slew him".[2]

[1] "The memoirs of Sergeant-Major Thomas Playford, 2nd Life Guards 1810-1830", in "The Napoleonic Archive 7: British Peninsular and Waterloo Cavalry", G Glover (ed.) (2022)

[2] "Lord Seaton's regiment at the battle of Waterloo", Rev. William Leeke (1866)

In the UK in the 1881 census, there were only 314 people with the Bemand surname or its variants. This is only 0.0016% of the population, compared with 298in 1841. However, these numbers may change as I find more Bemands that have been wrongly transcribed!

Outside of the UK, some preliminary studies in the Netherlands have found a thriving community, mainly using the Bemond and Beaumond variants of the name. There also a number of communities in France and Norway to follow up.

In starting this study and identifying its potential scope, I have identified that apart from the UK, the name is most prevalent in Europe in France, with some records in Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, and isolated occurences in Scandinavia. Elsewhere, the name appears in USA and Canada but very few in records for Australia and New Zealand.

In the UK, the name is most common in the Welsh Borders area of Shropshire/Montgomeryshire/Worcestershire during the 19th & 20th C, moving towards Herefordshire. There are smaller outposts of the name in London and Yorkshire.

Mapping the places where baptisms are recorded in parish registers shows the main areas where the Bemand surname occurs (with its variants), using symbol size to indicate the number of baptisms in one location. There is a strong cluster in West Yorkshire and in the Shropshire/Montgomeryshire border area, with a smaller cluster in London.

But this only shows part of the picture as the distribution changes significantly over time. Before 1650, there are very few baptisms in Shropshire, whereas West Yorkshire has a significant number. There are also small clusters of the surname in several other counties. All but the Shropshire group are likely to be families whose surnames originally were variants of BEAUMONT. The Shropshire group are the ones whose surname derives from the Welsh patronymic AP EDMOND. This variant first appears in the early to mid 1600s.

By the early 1700s, the distribution is dominated by the Yorkshire and Shropshire groups, the name virtually disappearing from the rest of the country. By the 1800s, the Yorkshire cluster has decreased significantly with the  Shropshire border area being the dominant location, with a small cluster developing in London (many of these families were originally from Shropshire).

The study is still at a relatively early stage but so far I have added UK census data to my database from 1841 to 1921, plus the 1939 register,  and civil birth, death and marriages from 1837 to 2000 (births), 2020 (deaths) and 1958 (marriages). Parish baptisms, marriages and burials have now been added and I have pulled together a number of the families, starting with the Shropshire and London-based families. At the moment I have not tackled family reconsititution for the Yorkshire-based families, mainly because many of them switch frequently between Beaumond and Beaumont and for the present I have excluded the Beaumont variant.

A preliminary look at vital records data from the Netherlands has found a number of Bemond and Beaumond families, many involved in shipping and some with links to the Dutch East Indies. A similar venture into the potential for French records has identified a number of locations in France where the name is found, mainly for the Beaumond variant.

There is also a small community in Norway that I found when following up an entry in the UK 1881 census, which covered a Norwegian vessel in Liverpool. The enumerator transcribed one of the seamen's names as Henrik Bemand, but back in Norway the spelling is much more variable - usually Behman or Behmand - not surprising in view of the numerous dialects spoken there. This variant is also found in Sweden.

There are a number of other possible variants in Germanic Europe and Sweden - mainly starting Bau- or Boh-. I have not yet decided whether to include these in the study.