ESWORTHY

This family name appears to be derived from a small "worth" (ie originally a collection of two to three houses) in the parish of Hatherleigh in the Black Torrington Hundred of North Devon, England. The village , if it can be called that, is spelt Essworthy now, and was spelt Esseworth in 1283, Esseworthi in 1330. The first element may be the personal name Essa, possibly a pet form of Eadsige.
The name is mentioned in conjunction with Essery in "A Dictionary of Devon Surnames" by Spielgelhalter, using Rt. Essaworthy of 1275 as a reference.

I have the IGI pages for this family name in Devon indexed on computer, and have the remainder of the world's IGI data in text files, but not yet indexed. I also have the following GRO data (what used to be St Catherines House), but only on paper:

 Births 1837 to 1997
 Deaths 1837 to 1882
 Marriages 1837 to 1911

I also have the Census Data for 1881 indexed on computer.

EMail me if you have any connection or interest in the name.

The name appears to have many variations, chiefly:

 Essworthy  Esworthie  Essworthie  Esseworthie
 Eswoorthy  Esswoorthy  Esworthye  Eazworthy
 Isworthy  Esseworrhye  Esworthys  Essworth

Other surnames are also possibly a corruption, eg Elsworthy and Ebsworthy (especially when you remember that the "ss" was written as "fs" until fairly recent times). Of course, my own surname of Essery is also supposed to be a corruption of Essworthy, this is entirely possibly when taking into account the Devon Dialect and the way that the Devonians like to shorten most words.

The last use of Esworth that I have is a marriage of Thomas in 1841, the last use of Essworthy was a birth in 1880 and four other unusual spellings were recorded in London, three Estworthy and one Essherby. Otherwise all spellings were Esworthy.

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