A One Name study into the surname LACY and the spelling variant LACEY.

There are a number of variants of the name and three main spellings, Lacey, Lacy and Lassey. At the moment this study will concentrate on the first two spellings. It should be noted that the presence of an ‘e’ in the surname was not always fixed through generations within a family. Several families we have studied as part of our research into the name used either spelling in the early parts of the 1800s to later have one son and his descendants using LACY whilst another used LACEY. 

The surname is said to be of Norman-French origin, originating from the town of Lassy in Calvados Region of France. Certainly some members of the army of William, Duke of Normandy who invaded in 1066 had the name ‘de Lacy’.

Hugh de Lacy (1020–1085) of Normandy had two sons, Walter and Ilbert, who both left Normandy and travelled to England with William the Conqueror, although there appears to be only evidence of Ilbert fighting at Hastings. He was involved in the Harrying of the North (1069–70) which May account for the substantial holding of lands the family in Lancashire and Yorkshire. In later years there were two distinct branches of the family; Ilbert’s branch, centred on the area around Blackburn and west Yorkshire and a southern branch centred on Herefordshire and Shropshire, held by Walter's descendants.

One of Ilbert's descendants was John, the first earl of Lincoln, one of the noblemen who forced King John to sign Magna Carta in 1215 and a Count Peter Lacy (1678 - 1751), was a military adviser to Czar Peter the Great, of Russia. 

There are numerous examples of the surname in the UK and Ireland over the centuries as well as other countries through emigration. An example is William Lacey an early emigrant to what is the USA in June 1635, leaving London for Virginia on the ship "Thomas and John"

Details of the study of surname frequency we have completed will be uploaded to our website when it is launched. These currently concentrate on England during the Nineteenth Century, but will be expanded in due course

Details of the study of surname distribution we have completed will be uploaded to our website when it is launched. These currently concentrate on England during the Nineteenth Century, but will be expanded in due course.