The Earle family, as the name indicates, is of Anglo-Saxon / English origin. The earliest ancestor of the family of whom we have any knowledge is John de Erlegh, who lived at Beckington, Somersetshire, England, about A. D. 1150.
A member of the London Genealogical Society writes: “The family of Earle is of very ancient origin, and can be traced back, most probably, to a Saxon ancestor, prior to the Norman Conquest; but certainly I find evidence proving that, at the time of Henry the Second (who was crowned A. D. 1154), they were of Beckington, in the County of Somerset.”
The name John de Erlegh is a mixture of French and English, and it is possible that its bearer, or an ancestor of his, may have entered England with William the Conqueror in 1066. Or, as the London genealogist suggests, there may have been a Saxon ancestor, but the name may have been colored by the powerful Norman-French influence in English life. Names are not very stable, and we shall find this name undergoing various changes at that early date, as also in our own day.
It has been customary to derive the family name from the word “earl,” meaning “a man,” “a noble.” This word is found not only in the Anglo-Saxon language but in its various forms, “eorl,” “erl,” and “jarl,” in the Norse languages as well. Webster connects the word with the Greek “arseen” a male, and the Zend, “arshan” a man.
But the family surname, as Collinson informs us in his History of Somersetshire, was derived from the name of the town of Earley or Early, near Reading, in Berkshire. The member of the family who first came into Somersetshire was lord of Earley in Berkshire, and hence Was called de Erley, or, as the name was variously spelled, de erlegh, de Erleigh, de Erlega, de Erleia, and even Hurlei or Hurley.
Surnames first began to be used in England about 1050, and those of nobles or landowners were derived from their estates. John de Erlegh was, therefore John, owner of the estate of that name. This is unquestionably the origin of our family name, whose orthography is now Earle. The French “de” meaning “of” indicates that the word following is the name of an estate, just as the Dutch “van” or the German “von” points in the same direction.
The word earl, as a title, maybe the origin of the surname of some families that bear that patronymic, but It is not the origin of the name Earle. For de Earl would have no meaning, and how could it acquire the final “e”? The tendency is not to add letters but to drop them. That final “e” is the survival of the second syllable, with which the name was originally pronounced.
But granting this, what is the etymology of the name of the Berkshire town? Of this, we are not at all sure. It may be from the Old English “erli” or “erliche”, it also could be from the Anglo-Saxon “aerlice” from aerlic. It would seem, from the earliest spellings of the name, that this is the case, though many will be loath to give up the noble English word “earl” as the original of the family name.
The facts, however, remain as given above, viz., that the family was so called from a town near Reading, in Berkshire, of which they were the lords. The first mode of spelling the word would seem to show its identity with the Old English “erli” or “erliche.” In any case, the word is English and not Celtic.
There would seem to be little doubt that Berkshire was the earliest home of our race in England, so far as can be ascertained, but there is just as little question that they soon after settled in Somersetshire and that the latter became the family seat for centuries.
All the Earles of England are possibly, not certainly, descendants of this Berkshire-Somerset family. It would not be safe to state positively that they were, for the great difficulty and impossibility of connecting the various branches with this main stem suggest the possibility of different origins. We like to think, however, that all have sprung from a common stock, and it is entirely within the range of possibility, notwithstanding the difficulty of now showing the connection.
The family history, which we have traced for twenty-six generations from John de Erleigh, extends over seven centuries, from the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the nineteenth, and through five counties, from Somerset to Wiltshire and Devon, from Devon to Dorset, and from Dorset to Essex.
In Somersetshire, we find sixteen successive generations, and branching off at the eleventh, Margaret de Erleigh, we have followed two streams, one in Wiltshire for eleven generations more, and another in Devon and Dorset through fifteen generations.
We believe this main stem, beginning in Somerset and branching off in different directions, is descended from all the Earles of England and America.
There are other important branches of the family in England, but we believe all have had their rise from this main stem.
We may not be able to show the precise connection or prove that there was any connection at all, but this is not to be wondered at. The genealogy is not given in full, the records were not always carefully kept and sometimes not kept at all.
As a rule, little attention was paid to younger sons. The estate descended to the eldest son, and the younger sons were obliged to go out and make their fortunes. So that there must have been a number of side branches, starting from the main stem, through younger sons, and reaching into all parts of England.
It was precisely in this way that the Devonshire branch began. One of the younger sons of “The White Knight”—just which one is not known was the grandfather of John Erie (L 2) of Ashburton.
It is known that the Earles of Winchester, Southampton, and Nottinghamshire, had their origin in the same way. It is almost certain that the Lincolnshire branch sprang from Somerset, and when it is remembered that Lincoln touches York and that York touches Lancaster, it is easy to believe that there was some relationship among the Earles of those counties.
