The Name Curchin
by
Leonard A. Curchin
Persons bearing the surname
Curchin are currently found in several parts of the English-speaking world,
including Canada,
the United States, Australia and
New Zealand.
All of them trace their ancestry to England.
In an article in the Asbury Park Sunday Times (New
Jersey), July
30, 1933, William Curchin
states that “The name Curchin is the English version of that of my ancestors,
French Hugenots [sic], who fled to England to
escape massacre.” The Huguenots were French protestants
who faced Catholic persecution in the 16th and 17th centuries. The first
recorded presence of Curchins in England
does date to the 16th century, but the tradition of a Huguenot
origin is difficult to verify. It has been suggested that Curchin is a variant
of the surname Curzon, which seems to originate in Norfolk and
Lincolnshire and
may be derived from Notre Dame de Courson in Calvados (France).
Attractive as this hypothesis appears at first glance, it is remarkable that
the known members of the Curchin family in the 16th and 17th
centuries mostly spell their name with an intial “Kir” or “Kyr”, and never with
the ending “on”. Therefore the name Curchin seems likely to come from an
earlier form Kirchen rather than Curzon.
My own research suggests a
family origin in Germany. Here there are a number of old towns named Kirchheim
(Kirchheim-am-Necker and Kirchheim-unter-Teck, among others), Kirchham (one in Bavaria,
another in what is now Upper Austria) or
Kirchhain (near Marburg, Hesse).
These are clearly variants of the same name, which also appears in early
documents with such spellings as Kirchhaim or Kirchen. Books on the history of
German personal names consistently derive the surname Kirchheim/Kirchen from
the place-name. An Arnold von Kirchain is recorded as early as 1267. Other
forms of the surname include Kirchayn, Kirchener and Kirchhainer.
Holders of this name
include: Johann Kirchheim, glass-painter (1348); Johann Kirchen, chancellor of
the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund (1411; earlier attested as Johann von
Kirchheim, 1400); Bernhard von Kirchen (died 1602), physician at Paderborn and
later Rotterdam, who married Clara, daughter of the spiritualist-anabaptist
leader David Joris and was accused of writing a book defending the heresies of
his father-in-law; Henricus Kirchen, writer at Marburg (1609); Maria Margarethe
Kirchin, astronomer (1670-1720); Philipus Ludovicus Kirchen, medical writer
(1694). Some bearers of this name may eventually have emigrated from Germany to
America. There is a Mary Kerchen attested in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania in
1840. A rockabilly musician named Bill Kirchen produced the 1972 hit, “Hot Rod
Lincoln”.
A German origin does not
necessarily discredit the tradition of a Huguenot ancestry, since it is
possible that German protestants named Kirchen may
have settled in France but
later fled to England to
escape persecution. However, I have not found any evidence of Kirchens in France in
the 16th century.
The English branch of the
family first appears in Lincolnshire. Gregory Curchin was christened on Oct. 18, 1570
at Frampton, Lincs. Other early representatives of the family include Thomas
Kyrchine, christened at Burton Coggles, Lincs. in 1574; William Kirchen, born
about 1576 in Bottesford, Leicester; Elizabeth Kyrchen, married 1587 in St.
Michael Coslany, Norwich. From Lincolnshire the family spread into neighbouring
counties such as Leicestershire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and
Northamptonshire.
From Lincolnshire also came
the American Curchins. Abraham Jacob Curchin of Colsterworth (Lincolnshire)
and later of Wiesbech (Cambridgeshire) had four sons, two of whom (Abraham
James, 1819-1894, and William Tomlin, 1823-1907) emigrated
to New England. Abraham settled
initially in New York but
later moved west, homesteading in Melvern, Kansas in
1869. His daughter Emaline (1849-1932) married Sherman Bronson Enderton, one of
Melvern’s founders. Cemetery records from Melvern record a dozen Curchins who
died there between 1894 and 1963. William settled in New Jersey, where there
are still many Curchins to this day. Members of the Curchin family can now be
found in many American states, from Florida to California, but all are believed
to be descendants of Abraham and William Curchin.
My branch of the family comes
from Kettering, Northamptonshire. The first Curchins recorded in this county
are Henry Kerchen (also spelled Kirchen) and his wife Elizabeth, who lived in
Glinton, Northants and had three children: Jane (1701-1703), Elizabeth
(born 1704) and Henry (born 1707). Whether these are the ancestors of the
Kettering Curchins is unclear. Thanks to recent research by Chris Mitchell, it
is now known that in 1805, John Curchin of Kettering
(1785-1845) married Sarah Sharp, daughter of William and Sarah (Lyon)
Sharp of Cranford St. John. They had two sons, John (born at Kettering in
1811), of whom nothing further is known, and William (birthdate unknown).
These were not the only
Curchins living in Kettering at
the time, because there are also records of Abraham Curchin and his wife
Susanna Kilburn, who had two children, Edwood (1813) and Susanna (1815). This
appears to be a collateral branch of the family, with Abraham being perhaps a
brother or cousin of John senior. I do not have further information on
Abraham’s descendants. However, the Victoria County History (Northamptonshire)
records that a Mrs. Jane Curchin, upon her death in 1900, bequeathed to the
Toller Chapel (nonconformist) a legacy of 200 pounds, the interest from which
would provide money and clothing for the poor. As this Jane Curchin is unlikely
to be Sarah Jane Bailey Curchin (see below) who would only have been about
thirty in 1900, she might be the widow of Edwood. This remains to be verified.
In 1833 William Curchin
married Elizabeth Peirce, daughter of John Peirce (a hairdresser at Kettering)
and his wife Hannah (Chapman) Peirce. William and Elizabeth were the parents of
George Curchin, born in 1834. William and Elizabeth do not seem to have
survived long, since the 1841 census for Northants shows 7-year old George
living with his mother’s elderly parents and their 22-year old son(?) George Peirce, a cutler by profession, at West Side
Hog Leys, Kettering. George Curchin likewise became a cutler. In 1858 he
married Mary Copley (born at Morborne in 1836, one of six offspring of William
and Elizabeth Copley) and they had eight children: Harry (1866), George William
(1867), Frederick
(1869), Mary Elizabeth (1870), Eliza Jane (1872), Minnie (1874), Jasper (1876)
and Ellen (1880). The Curchins living at Kettering
today are descendants of Frederick.
George William Curchin was
secretary of the Kettering United football club in the 1890s. He and his wife,
Sarah Jane Bailey, produced three children: George William, Mabel and Stephen,
the last of whom died of nephritis after falling through the ice at age 12.
George William the younger (1893-1978) was my grandfather. After serving with
the Berkshire Regiment in World War I, he emigrated to
London, Ontario,
where he married Bertha May Hardiman on May
30, 1921.
My grandmother Bertha May
Hardiman (1890-1978) was the second-youngest of six children of Alfred Hardiman
(born at Wellesbourne, Warwickshire in 1857) and Emma Barnwell (born at
Stretton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire around 1848; died in 1924). Emma was the
daughter of Joseph Barnwell (born at Stretton on Dunsmore in 1827) and
Elizabeth Dankley. Alfred was the son of Daniel Hardiman (born at Wellesbourne
in 1827) and Elizabeth Constable (married at Wellesbourne in 1847); the
grandson of William Hardiman and Eleanor Nichols; and the great-grandson of
Richard Hardiman. William Hardiman, born at Wellesbourne in 1798, was still
living there at the time of the 1881 census, though Eleanor was dead. (William and Eleanor also had a son William, born at Wellesbourne
in 1825 and married to Mary Bennett in 1851; these two had a daughter Eleanor,
who died in infancy.) Alfred and Emma were married at Stretton on
Dunsmore on May 18, 1880 and
he worked for a time as a gardener. According to the 1891 census, he was
employed as a goods shunter, and they were living at 89
Cambridge Street in Rugby.
Their other five children, in order of birth, were Wilfred and Ernest (twins),
Eva Helen (“Nell”), Alice Maude, and Lily.
Learn about my Scottish
ancestors.
Revised October 2005