The purpose of this project is to identify the many variants of the Turbeville surname and how they are related.  A key point of interest is the origin of the variants.  We have adopted the Turbeville variant not to suggest that it has any claim of primacy but because it is one of the most common variants in present-day United States.  Because the surname is fairly rare, we hope to be able to gradually build a comprehensive survey of all the lines depending heavily on census and vital record information.  There is a related Turbeville DNA project under Family Tree DNA.

Although this project has been initiated in the United States, it will also be important to identify and research the lines in Great Britain.  The project is just getting started but we welcome information from anyone.  Our goal is to follow sound research methodology in seeking original primary sources wherever possible.

Census enumerators have spelled the surname many different ways over the years.  Because of this, we caution readers not to attach too much significance  to any particular variant.  We know that in the United States, the surnames evolved and two people with different variants could still be very closely related.  The name generally comes in three syllables, e.g. Tur-be-ville, with each syllable having its set of variations.  The first syllable, “Tur,” appears to have been fairly stable and occurs in an overwhelming majority of the variants.  One exception that has been identified so far as a potential variant is TROUBLEFIELD.

The second syllable, “be,” has also appeared as “ber”, “by”,  “bi”, “bbe”, “bba”, and even “va”.  The last syllable, “ville,” has also appeared as “vill”, “vell”, “field”, and “fill”.

One could take almost any combination of these syllables and there is a good chance that the surname has appeared that way.

For the purposes of this study, we have listed D'URBEVILLE, TROUBLEFIELD, TUBBERVILLE, TUBERVILLE, TURBEFIELD, TURBERFIELD, TURBERVILLE, TURBEVILLE, TURBYFILL, TURBYVILLE, and TURVAVILLE as variants but we will consider any potential variants.

Most secondary sources claim that the name derived as a place name from France which was either Urbeville or Thiberville.

The name is generally traced back to a Norman knight named Payn de Turberville (or D’Urbeville) who arrived in England sometime after the Norman Conquest.  He participated in the conquering of Wales and was granted land there on which he built Coity Castle.  The connection of the Turbeville surname to this knight has not been documented yet, to my knowledge.

The Turberville family later became prominent in the town of Bere Regis in the county of Dorset.  Thomas Hardy based his novel, Tess of the D’Urbevilles, on this family.

The earliest Turbeville’s have been documented in the American colonies in the 1600’s in South Carolina and Virginia. 

I recently compiled a list of all individuals with the Turbeville surname (including all identifiable variants) from the 1850 US Census.  I identified 404 individuals in 97 distinct households.  I plan to compile other lists from additional censuses in the United States and in England and Wales.

The name appears to be more common in the United States now than in Great Britain.  In the 1850 census, the surname appears most often in South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee.  Even now, the name is most heavily concentrated in the southeastern United States.  Research is still needed into the distribution of the name in Britain. 

A Turbeville DNA project has been started on the FamilyTreeDNA website.  There are still fewer than 10 participants but already the results suggest a close relationship between some of the surname variants in the United States.  We need many more participants from the United States and from Britain before we can draw any conclusions.