12,934 Global Brough Family Members

I have conducting a One name study (http://brough.one-name.net/) into the Brough surname for over 35 years, tracing the spread of the surname across the world from its origins in central Europe and trying to link family lines together (with varying degrees of success). I hit a bit of a brick wall when researching my own Brough line in Cumberland in the North of England and decided to document all the nearby Brough families, to see if they joined up with my own. This led to researching Broughs in neighbouring counties and before I knew it, I was in the USA and Australia and all places in-between  :-)

I am always happy to help people with Brough ancestry, to docment their family line

Doug Brough

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Hi Cynthia

Brough is a common name in Scotland, England and Ireland. The surname is originally thought to have originated as a place name. About 1200 years ago in central Europe and England, the word for a fort was burh. It is thought that someone who lived in or near a fort might have been known as “john of the burh” and later “John Burh” and over time the word burh evolved into a whole variety of different spellings including Brough.  Many of the Brough families today around Pennsyvania, Ohio and Virginia are descendents of a Hermanus Brugh who arrived in Philadelphia in 1743 from Germany. Over time some of his descendents evolved their surnames to Bruch, Burgh and Brough. In the NE USA quite a few Broughs descend from French Breaux families who emigrated to Quebec and then anglicised their name when they crossed the border. Today there have been Broughs born in every continent, apart from the Artic and Antarctica, though I am sure that at some point in time, we will see a Brough born there.

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