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Scope and aims
Father Patrick Comerford has done a lot of research into the Comerford surname, registering it at the Guild of One Name Studies and posting his findings on his blog. He has cut through a lot of the unsubstantiated older family history and has pinpointed two origins for the name and its variants - Comberford in Staffordshire and Quemerford in Wiltshire near Calne.
The Irish Comerfords largely descend from the latter, usually first appearing in the records as de Quemerford, stabilising as Comerford in the 16th Century. They look to have arrived from England in the late 13th Century/early 14th Century when William de Calne married into a prestigious Irish family. William had a number of English lawyers and agents look after his affairs, including a Philip de Quemerford/ (sometimes Philip of Cummerford) who settled in Kilkenny. The de Quemerford family had faded away in Wiltshire by the end of the 14th Century. The family are then found working in Ireland over the next century or two as lawyers or agents managing estates in Ireland, as well as local worthies.
Aims
Father Patrick has identified eleven branches of the Comerford family, but tracing them down to the present day can be difficult. The aim of this project is to bring together all the Comerford, Comberford and Quemerford (and variations like Commerford, Cummerford, Cumiford, Compfort, Comport and Comfort). This will should us to tease out the more recent Comerford lines, which combined with DNA, could help group them by their deeper ancestry.
How to Participate
- Send a request to collaborate on this project by clicking the "Actions" button and asking to join the project. One of the current collaborators will accept your request asap.
- Once you are a member you can then add profiles to the project:
- Click "Actions" and select "Add Profiles" then type the name into the box. If you have a lot to add it might be an idea to type the surname in, which will bring up any of the profiles you added or followed that aren't already part of the project.
- If you find a profile that you want to add to this project and it is a public profile you have edit rights to, then navigate to the profile and under "More Actions" choose "Add to project" or if there are no other projects attached to the profile then you click the "Invite to Project" link.
- Also, feel free to edit this page. Click here for instructions about using Wiki markup language.
For other information about projects see: Working with Projects.
If you need any general help then see: A to Z of Help Topics.
Coat of Arms
Father Patrick has gone into depth on the Comerford coats of arms, which has varied across the years and branches of the families.
The earliest one, on the tomb of Gerald Comerford d. 1604, has the blazon "Azure, a bugle horn Argent stringed Gules, between three mullets Or" and this is the one used for the project (with the five points, although the photograph shows pierced eight pointed stars). Later coats of arms incorporated the Comberford, Staffordshire coat of arms in the mistaken belief that this was the origin of the Irish Comerfords. The most popular version of this is a quartered shield with the Comberford arms, "Gules, a talbot passant Argent", in the top left and bottom right, alongside the Comerford arms in the other two corners.
Comerford coat of arms used here was created using Uplink Heraldry Generator.
Resources
- Comerford at the Guild of One Name Studies
- Comerford Family History Blog, by Father Patrick Comerford
- The Comerfords in Ireland: disentangling myths and legends to find true origins, by Father Patrick Comerford on his personal blog
- The Comerford Family: Early Documented History, County Kilkenny Ireland History
- Comerford on the Ancestry.co.uk forums
- Comerford distribution in Griffith's Valuation
- Comerford, in the 1901 Irish census
- Comerford, in the 1911 Irish census
- Comerford Family History, by John Comerford d'Aunou, an example of the Comerford tree that is hard to source properly.
- The Comerford Crown
DNA
There are a number of DNA projects at FTNDA that Comerfords could join:
- Comerford Surname Project, focused on the Comerford surname, but also includes those with any Comerford ancestry
- Ireland Y DNA Project
- Kilkenny Surnames Project, as a lot of Comerfords trace their origins back here
- County Wexford Project, for the same reasons
- Ulvungar Dynasty Project, beyond the papertrail it seems like the Comerford Y DNA can be traced back to the Salian Franks as represented by DNA sample from 7th Century tombs at Ergolding.
Notable Comerfords
See: Wikipedia
- Frank Comerford Walker (1886–1959), United States political figure
- Dr Joseph Comerford (1958-2000), British engineer and irrigation specialised working for the UN
- Máire Comerford (1893-1982), Irish journalist and Republican activist
- Tommy Comerford (1932-2003), British crime lord