My name is John Firr and today 08 July 2020 marks the start of my one name study on the FIRR surname. As I am right at the beginning this profile may seem a bit thin on detail compared to many others but I will build it up over the coming weeks and months as I get more data and detail under my belt. If you are interested in the FIRR surname or indeed you are a Firr then do get in touch.

I have been playing around with what might be called standard Family History or pedigree research for a good few years now, like many people I pick it up, drop it and then pick it up again.

I became interested because I knew the FIRR name was rare at least in the UK and believed that possibly I was the last of the line. I,m pleased to say that I now have two sons and a grandaughter so the name survives two more generations. I wanted to capture a family tree for my grandaughter but in the process of researching that It became apparent that the name is subject to many deviants and transcription errors and also some variants. I have become fascinated to understand exactly how many FIRRS have been around and how they are connected.

The name has always been very small in the UK but seems to be healthier in North America particularly Canada. I would love as part of this study to understand the transatlantic connection.

I would like to acknowledge Julie Goucher from the Guild whos "Introduction to One Name Studies" course has inspired me to embark on this endeavour.

This brief introduction will hopefully serve as a placeholder to show I am up and running. Please visit again as it will grow.

I have been amazed over the last few years at just how many transcription errors it is possible to generate from such a small name but it is almost impossible to search for the birth, marriage and death indexes or census for any Firr individual without finding transcription problems, therefore going back to source images is vital.

Some errors and deviants also appear to be genuine variants.

As I start I am looking primarily at the name FIRR (my name) and the known variant FIR - the 19th century FIRRS used both interchangeably sometimes on the same document!

I am also considering Fur and Furr at this stage, I,m not sure if they are genuine variants but are common transcription errors.

I may extend to FARR at some point although this seems far more prevalent and I am currently convinced it is a completely seperate surname but watch this space.

The origin of the FIRR surname is elusive (and a key driver for carrying out this study).

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland has no entry for FIRR or indeed for FIR and FUR.

It does however contain the following entry for FURR:

"Nickname from middle English furre (fur) a fur lining for a garment, a coat made or trimmed with fur. Perhaps a nickname for a wearer, maker, or seller of such items"

( Thanks to Peter Copsey Guild Librarian and Archivist for looking this up for me)

Forebears.IO equally yields no definition and neither do Ancestry.co.uk or Findmypast.co,uk.

What I do know is that my direct ancestors trace back to a small family of predominantly hunt servants based around Hertfordshire and Kent. Equally the UK focus of FIR has historically been Kent. My earliest proven ancestor is Abraham Fir ( B.1796) with the family adopting the FIRR spelling in the mid 1800s. I had always believed that this was just the result of a mistaken spelling that stuck or possibly some sort of affectation. However it transpires that the name with the double R spelling has been present for some time with a marriage recorded between John FIRR and Elizabeth Stoper in Selby Yorkshire in 1682.

I hope to unravel this puzzle over the coming months and or years.

I am at an early stage of my research but the table below demonstrates the rarity of the Firr name and its likely variants of FIR and FUR. It also shows that FURR although still fairly small is considerable more widespread.

I will up date this information in a few weeks from today July 2020.

Numbers taken from Findmypast.co.uk searching on exact spellings. (England and Wales only at this stage)

The distribution of the name is interesting and I will up date this table with my own findings once I have a larger body of my own data.

The data in the table below is taken from forebears.io and I thank them for making it available on their website.

Data for 2014