I have the IGI pages for this family name in the UK 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) indexed on computer:
| Births | 1837 to 1997 |
| Deaths | 1837 to 1985 |
| Marriages | 1837 to 1985 |
I also have the Census Data for 1881 indexed on computer.
EMail me if you have any connection or interest in the name.
Whilst researching in the Record Office at Barnstaple, I came across one family, in Petrockstowe, where the marriage took place with the fathers name being Essery (written Efsery), the first child was baptised as Ebsery and he was married as Ebsary, so there are probably a lot of other corruptions of the name. I have since checked the 1851 Census for Petrockstowe and found three families with the surname Ebsary and one with the surname Ebsry, an obvious further corruption.
The corruption of Essery from Essworthy is entirely possible when taking into account the Devon Dialect and the way that the Devonians like to shorten most words.
The majority of the corruptions have been to replace the second "e" with another vowel, eg Essary, Essury, Essiry, Essory, but I have also seen Essey and Essry. I don't believe that Esser is a variation as that appears to have mostly had Germanic origins and the spread of the name in 1837 is mostly in the north of the country rather than around Devon.
The Essery name itself appears to be mostly Devon and Cornwall based around 1837, but there are pockets in several sea ports, eg East End of London, Liverpool Docks (W Derby), Portsea Island and Portsmouth, Newport Monmouthshire, Bristol and Cardiff. Possibly a wife in every port? There is one pocket that I have been unable to explain, based around Bedford. There is a possibility that this family is a corruption of the Essely family that bore Arms in the Lincolnshire area until they seemed to die out circa 1595. It was the Essely family that got me interested in family history as I was told that I had the right to bear Arms. It turned out after a little bit of investigation that the Arms were for this Lincolnshire family, and had nothing to do with mine.
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