Wright Name Study

Profile managers: One Name Studies WikiTree [send private message], Terry Wright [send private message], Gil Wright [send private message], Shawn Wright [send private message], and Zak Jones [send private message]

Wright Surname list - a list of Wright Profiles on Wikitree

This is a One Name Study to collect together in one place everything about one surname and the variants of that name. The hope is that other researchers like you will join our study to help make it a valuable reference point for people studying lines that cross or intersect. Please contact the project leader, add categories to your profiles, add your questions to the bulletin board, add details of your name research, etc.

The ancestors of the Wright family lived among an ancient Scottish people called the Boernicians. A ancient race of the north a mixture of Scotish Picts and Angles. The surname of Wright is from the Old English word wyrtha which means worker, a woodworker, a cartwright, a maker of wheels. It was also surname common to the Lowlands and to the north of England. The Clans or families to the north of the border became Scottish about the year 1000 A.D., and to the south they became English. Wrights settled in Plowland in Holderness then moving north into Durham, where they were seated at Bradbury and Sedgefield, Northumberland and Berwick. They had estates in Yorkshire were at Bolton-upon-Swale, Botton Hall, and Sigglesthorn Hall.

Wright is the 661st most common surname in the world.

Approximately 791,330 people bear the Wright surname.

The Wright surname is most prevalent in the United States. In 2014, 489,919 people had the surname Wright in the United States.

Highest density of the Wright surname is in Jamaica. In 2014, 1 in 65 people had the surname Wright in Jamaica.

Wright is the 14th most common surname England.

Wright, Right, Write, Wrighte, Wirryht, Wirycht, Wrich, Wiricht, Wryght, Wraight, Wrighty, Wrightt, Wriight, Wrright, Wrighht, Wreight, Wrighit.

The name Wright has been honoured by numerous knighthoods.

Notable amongst the family name during the early history was Earl of Elgin and Kincardine.

In 1296 there is mention of Rauf le Wrighte, burgess of Stirling, and Thomas le Whright of the Blakehalle of Lanarkshire.

In 1342 there is mention of the land of Richard Wricht or Richard dictus Wright in Aberdeen

In 1362 Malcolm Vrycht was a charter witness in Aberdeen.

In 1362 Robert Wryhyt, a carpenter of Berwick, was employed on the roof of the chapel and hall called "la Blakhalle" of the Castle of Berwick, along with another carpenter Thomas Wryhyt of Alnewyk.

In 1603 the crowns of Scotland and England were unified under James VI, The border clans were dispersed to England, Northern Scotland and Ireland, the clans were granted land after they signed a "undertaking" to stay Protestant and remain faithful to the crown. Members of the Wright family were among these immigrants to Ireland they settled in Gola, County Mongahan, Newry, County Down, Compsey Cottge, County Tipperary and Mespil, County Dublin.

The earliest Wright settlers to the new land were

Robert Wright and his wife who settled in Virginia in 1623.

Richard and Margaret Wright who arrived in Salem, Massachusetts in 1630.

Edward Wright who settled in Somerset, Maryland near Barren Creek in about 1660.

John Wright who settled in St John, Newfoundland in 1730.

Many of the earliest settlers to Australia were convicts.There were at least 17 convicts with the name Wright that was sent to Australia some of these were

First Fleet convicts

Joseph Wright from London

Benjamin Wright from London

William Wright from London

James Wright from Maidstone

Ann Wright from London

Thomas Wright from Reading

Second Fleet Convicts

John Wright from Middlesex

Thomas Wright from Derby

Joseph Wright from Lancaster

John Wright from Middlesex

William Wright from Middlesex

David Wright from Hertford

Third Fleet Convicts

William Wright from Chester

Aaron Wright from Middlesex

Charles Wright from York

James Wright from Norfolk

Samuel Wright from London

Allen Wright (abt.1826-1885), Choctaw chief credited with creating the name "Oklahoma"

Sir Arthur Cory-Wright, 2nd Baronet (1869–1951)

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) a American Architect

Orville Wright (1871-1948) and Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) American aviation pioneers they made the first powered airplane flight in 1903.

William Valentine Wright (1826- ) Created Wright's Traditional Soap, or Wright's Coal Tar Soap in 1860, is a popular brand of antiseptic soap that is designed to thoroughly cleanse the skin. It is an orange colour.

Dennis Wright (1895-1967) English Composer and conductor

Judith Wright a Australian poet

Robin Wright (born 1966), American actress

Sewall Wright a professor of biology and genetics at the University of Chicago

L Wright & Son established Wrights Biscuits in 1790. Children's illustrator Mabel Lucie Attwell created the Wright's logo, a curly-haired boy called Mischief

Richard Wright English musician, keyboardist of Pink Floyd

Alexander Wright (soldier), British army private, awarded VC during the Crimean War

Bob Wright, American television businessman and president, CEO, and chairman of NBC

Ronald Wright, Canadian writer

Susan Barrantes, mother of Sarah, Duchess of York, also known as Susan Mary Wright

Turbutt Wright (1741–1783), American planter and politician

Marian Wright Edelman (born 1939), American lawyer and founder of the Children's Defense Fund

Henry T. Wright, American archaeologist, National Geographic, University of Michigan

Orville Wright

Wilbur Wright

Australia

Division of Wright, federal electoral division in Queensland

Electoral district of Wright, state electoral district in South Australia

Wright, Australian Capital Territory

Wright railway station, Melbourne

Wright Rock, Tasmanian island in northern Bass Strait

Canada

Wright, Quebec

Mont Wright (Quebec), mountain near Fermont, Quebec

United States

Wright, Florida

Wright, Iowa

Wright, Kansas

Wright, Minnesota

Wright, New York

Wright, West Virginia

Wright, Wyoming

Wright City, Missouri

Wright City, Oklahoma

Wright County

Wright Township

Family of Terry Wright

Joseph Wright who on 26th May 1784, was tried and found guilty of stealing lead. Joseph Wright appeared before the court in the Old Bailey, 26th May 1784, charged with stealing 218lb of lead which he was seen carrying in Sloane Square, Chelsea. The trial was in Justice Hall, Old Bailey.He was sentenced to transportation for life and arrived at Botany Bay, 26th January, 1788 on the Scarborough with the First Fleet. Joseph Wright married Second Fleet convict Eleanor Gott, they had 7 children together.

Family of Shawn Eric Wright

Edward Wright was among the first, but not the first to land in Somerset, Maryland, USA. Stepping foot on the shores of the Barren Creek, now known as Mardela Springs, Edward's name is etched throughout land records in the area. Having purchased hundreds of acers of land in that region, his name and his family's mark has been left there for well over 300 years.

A Brief History of Mardela Springs and the Barren Creek Area

Recorded history of the Barren Creek area dates from the mid-1600s, when English fur traders drifted into the Nanticoke River watershed to open commerce with the native Americans living there. Maryland's 1634 charter included all that part of the peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the ocean (Delaware River) north of Virginia. Settlers moved into the lower peninsula coming north from Virginia's eastern shore and east from Virginia's Northern Neck area across the Chesapeake Bay. When William Penn in 1682 claimed the western shore of the Delaware River, it started a controversy with Maryland that would last until a boundary line for Delaware was agreed on in the mid-1700s.

Native Americans living along the eastern shores of the Nanticoke River were part of the Nanticoke tribe, but locally known as the PUCKAMEE group. They fished, hunted, and raised crops, lived in long houses, and, except for one recorded massacre of a white family, were generally peaceful toward European settlers. From 1678 to 1698 a reservation was established by the colonial Assembly, stretching from the mouth of Barren Creek to near Riverton and inland to the present town of Mardela Springs, mirroring the Chicone group’s reservation on the river’s western shore. By the early 1700s most Puckamees had moved out of the area, going either north to Pennsylvania or east to the area around Millsboro, Delaware.

Settlement by white families was delayed until the latter 1600s, primarily due to white fur traders' desire to avoid disruption of their dealings with Indians for beaver, deer, and fox hides. Families began patenting land in this northwestern part of Wicomico County by the 1680s, however, and early families included the Wrights, Venables, Weatherlys, Roberson/Robinsons, and Wilsons, among others. Farms were largely self-sufficient, depending on ships sailing up the River and into Barren Creek for manufactured goods from Europe and sugar from Bermuda. Both indentured servants and slaves were here, but there were few large slaveowners. They raised tobacco as a cash cop, the same ships loading hogsheads of tobacco at the wharf by the warehouse on the south bank of Barren Creek. Tobacco gave way to grain farming by the latter 1700s, and by the mid-1700s hundreds of families lived in the area, and a small village began to form on the banks of the Creek, taking the name of Barren Creek Springs.

The "town with three names" grew because of four factors: the location of the tobacco warehouse, a number of water-powered grist and saw mills on the stream, the location on the major road linking county seat Princess Anne with all points north of the Nanticoke on the Eastern Shore, and the prevalence of mineral water springs. Earliest references call it Barren Creek, then Barren Creek Springs; in 1880 town leaders changed the name to Russum in honor of a local business man and resident, then back to Barren Creek Springs in 1884. Ten years later entrepreneurs in the bottled mineral water business urged another change to Mardela Springs, hoping to avoid any associations with images of a "barren" place or of water that came from “Barren Creek”.

The economic & cultural history of the region centered on farming, commerce chiefly via shipping with the "outside" work, and manufacturing in the mills - at one time more than 12 on Barren Creek alone. Vienna had become the primary river crossing in the early 1700s, and laws demanded the building and upkeep of a causeway across the marsh on the east bank, providing a road leading directly to Barren Creek Springs. From there, the main road led south to Quantico, and on to Somerset County seat, Princess Anne. The primary road to Salisbury, (established about 1732), at that time veered off the road to Quantico, turning east and following close to the Wicomico River.

The town as a spa and tourist mecca began to evolve in the 1840s. The fame of the mineral water springs made the town a destination for national political figures and campaigns, and the Barren Creek Hotel expanded from a small inn built in the latter 1700s to a two story, then three story, hotel. Soon after the end of the Civil War a "Spring House" was built on the grounds of the hotel, near the largest spring, and guests would come to drink the "health-giving" waters and soak their feet! By the late 1800s hundreds of visitors from Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia and throughout the region flocked to the town every summer, promenading along the tree-shaded Main Street in the evening, boating on the Creek, taking carriage rides in the countryside, and being entertained by travelling entertainers and political rallies!

Growth in the mid-1800s came rapidly with two developments - the coming of steamboat traffic on the Nanticoke River in the 1850s and the arrival of the railroad in 1890. Both contributed to farming's transition to commercial agriculture and the rise of manufacturing. Along with farmers' switch from oxen power to horses and then to steam engines for such tasks as threshing, and by the early 20th century to tractors. Strawberries and melons became the new "cash crops" and by the turn of the century the appearance of canning factories added tomatoes and other vegetables to the list.

The railroad also encouraged the expansion of the sale of the mineral waters and the new Mardela Springs Mineral Water Company shipped thousands of bottles of spring water up and down the east coast. The railroad encouraged local townspeople to open their homes to hundreds of vacationers, salesmen and travelers of all kinds by advertising their homes as "Boarding Houses." City dwellers from the Western Shore (of the Chesapeake Bay) taking the train to Ocean City, often stopped off in Mardela Springs to break the journey for a night. Local businessmen opened grocery stores, millinery stores, blacksmith shops, and a shipyard. In the early 1900s the town was a bustling commercial center.

The first church built in town in 1842, the Barren Creek Springs Presbyterian Church, was soon joined by two Methodist churches and a Baptist Church. The first school is thought to be the private one operating in the same Presbyterian Church building in the 1840s. Free public elementary education, legislated by the state in the 1860s brought about several one room schools in the town and neighboring area, and a new combination elementary and high school was built in 1920, only to be replaced by a larger brick building in 1935.

World War One and World War Two brought major changes to the town and area. Young men were carried to far away places in this country and overseas, and were introduced to a new world in more ways than one. The introduction of the automobile meant country folk could quickly and easily travel to the growing commercial hub of Salisbury, and the construction of a major highway, U.S. Route 50, along with a bridge over Chesapeake Bay, made it easy for travelers to bypass Mardela Springs. Local stores went out of business. The railroad ceased to run locally. Farmers carried their crops to metropolitan markets by trucks. By the 1960s the town had suddenly regressed, to become once again a small quiet village.

*credits to the Westside Historical Society and MardelaSprings.org for the information.

The following text has been taken from pages 51 to 58 of The Wright Ancestry Of Caroline, Dorchester, Somerset and Wicomico Counties, Maryland (1907) by Charles W. Wright.

The Wright Ancestry of Caroline, Dorchester, Somerset and Wicomico Counties, Maryland

Edward Wright, of Barren Creek, is said to have come from England about 1660, and settled on or near Barren Creek, a tributary issuing from the south side of the Nanticoke River and extending through a portion of Somerset that has since become Wicomico County, Maryland. There may be some uncertainty as to when he came to that particular section, but there is no doubt as to his possessions in that locality nearly twenty years after the above mentioned year. It is positively known that Edward was not the first Wright that obtained a foothold on Somerset soil, as one of the succeeding pages will show that in 1666 one Bloyce Wright possessed 150 acres, for which he paid an annual rent of 1 pound, 3 shil lings.

This tract of land was known as Bloyce's Hope, and lay several miles south of Barren Creek. It should not be inferred that by paying an annual rent the possessor was nothing more than a tenant, for such was not the case, as few if any grants were given at that time without the payment of a nominal rent being a condition precedent.

Edward Wright patented considerable land in the Barren Creek section, as the official records disclose the following surveys and patents in his name.

Goshen, surveyed 300 acres March 20, 1679, for Samuel Cooper and assigned to Edward Wright near Panotuson 150 acres, possessed by John Win, now by Randall Smullen but not conveyed, 150 by Anne Riggon. 12s.

White Chapel, surveyed 300 acres, Nov. 20, 1685, for Edward Wright, possessed by John Samruee. ] 2s. rent.

Mile End, surveyed May 22, for Edward Wright, lying near the head of Barren Creek, 150 acres of said land possessed by John Sammee, 150 acres the resi due of Jahn Parramorr's widow. 12s. yearly rent.

Allgate, surveyed 149 acres Nov. 12, 1688, for Ed ward Wright, in the woods from main branch of Bar ren Creek possessed by John Sammee. 6s.

Edward Wright on Sept. 24, 1694, obtained a Pat ent for 150 acres of land called "Allgate" lying back of the woods about one-half mile from and on the North side of Barren Creek main branch and adjoin ing land called "Mile End," formerly surveyed for said Wright.

Edward Wright on May 13, 1700, obtained a patent for 250 acres of land called "Barren Quarter" in Som erset County, Province of Maryland.

Barren Quarter, surveyed 250 acres Sept. 15, 1700, for Edward Wright on the North side of a creek issuing out of the south side of the Nanticoke River called Barren Creek, possessed by Edward Wright. 10s.

Edward Wright married Katherine, daughter of Nehemiah Covington, who died; her burial was Au 52 THE WRIQHT ANCESTRY gust 7, 1681, on her father's plantation. Edward Wright had one son, Jacob. He may have also been the father of other children, Solomon and Esther in cluded. Many of his descendants are long lived, yet Jacob is not likely to have been the son of Katherine, as she preceded him in death one hundred and sixteen years. Therefore, it is assumed that Edward married more than once. Will here state that there appears to have been three Edward Wrights living not farther than thirty miles from each other, the other two in Dorchester County, one of which at Wright's Meadows, near the State of Delaware.

Jacob Wright, son of Edward, died Friday, May 26, 1797, and was buried in the family burying ground under a walnut tree he planted on the plantation where he lived and died, lying near Barren Creek Springs (now Mardela), Somerset County (now Wi comico County), Md. This plantation has been in the Wright family for many generations, being now owned and occupied by Beauchamp A. Wright, who is 86 years of age, and the oldest living descendant of Edward.

Immediately after Jacob's burial a large and nicely hewn cedar post was substantially placed at his grave, and it there remained standing in a good state of preservation for over one hundred and five years, performing the solemn duty of marking the last resting place of all that was mortal of Jacob Wright. He married Elizabeth Baily in May, 1754, who died at 5 o'clock P. M., Saturday, November 23, 1811.

Jacob Wright made a will October 11, 1796. Ex tracts from same are as follows:

"To my 2 sons Joseph Wright and Benjamin Wright, All my lands to be equally divided among themselves.

"Land called 'Now or Never,' 53^ acres, Tract called 'Chance,' 50 acres, Tract called 'Jacob's de light' 10 acres & 25 acres in a Tract of Bartholumew Taylor's for which I have a conveyance and 6 A land I bought from Benjamin Goshen; also each of them 1 cow & calf. To son Joshua Wright 1 negro Boy Charles. To son Isaac Wright I negro garl Rose. To daughter Nelly Cooper 1 negro garl Kitty, Then Kitty goes to her daughter Betty Cooper. To daugh ter Betty Winser negro garl Alice her life then to her daughter Pegy Winser. To my wife Betty Wright 1 negro woman called Rose to dispose of her and increase as she thinks fit.

"To my grand daughter Nelly Taylor 1 Feather bed and Furniture. "Balance of moovable estate to my 7 children Joshua, Isaac, Nelly, Sary, Betty, Joseph and Benja min Wright.

"To wife all my lands & living during her nat ural life and then to be divided. "Appoint wife holy and soly executor." his Jacob x Wright, mark Witnesses John Roberson Bartholomew Taylor Isaac Kinney.

The will from which the above extracts were taken was probated July 10, 1797. From the will of Jacob Wright it appears that he had seven children, instead of six, as some of the present generation has supposed. The will also indi cates that the three daughters were, or had been, married, or one married twice before his death, as follows:

Nelly married a Mr. Cooper, and to them born at least one child, Betty. Bettie married a Mr. Windser, and to them born at least one child, Pegy. Sary appears to have married a Mr. Taylor, as there was a grand-daughter named Nelly Taylor, also mentioned in the will.

No further record is at hand of either of the three daughters or their husbands, and it is possible that they may have had more children than those men tioned above. And also it is possible that many of the Coopers, Windsors and Taylors that are in what in now Wicomico County, descended from the daugh ters of Jacob Wright.

There is no information at hand of Isaac Wright, son of Jacob.

Joseph Wright, son of Jacob, married Nancy McDaniel, Thursday, November 29, 1792. To this union were born at least four children :

Joshua Wright, son of Joseph, born Saturday, De cember 7, 1793; went West and thence to New Or leans, La.

James Wright, son of Joseph, born Saturday, July 29, 1797. No further record. Isaac Wright, son of Joseph, born Monday, October 14, 1799; went West to Troy, Ind. Betty Wright, daughter of Joseph, born Friday, February 25, 1803. No further record. Benjamin Wright, son of Jacob, had four sons: John, Willing, Joseph and Levin Wilson.

No record of John or Willing Wright.

As noted in the text above, John and Willing Wright did not have their whereabouts known at the time of this writing in 1907. It has now been proven via Census records that John Wright, son of Benjamin Wright, was the father of one Jacob Pattern Wright, as well as several other children by his wife Sally Bradley. Jacob P Wright's son John P Wright had three children, of whom several still inherit the land of Somerset, Maryland.

My ancestry; however, comes from Jacob Pattern Wright's other son, William Washington Wright, who was among the first of the Wrights to leave Barren Creek, moving to Hurlock, Maryland, just down the road. Here, William had three children with his wife Delia Insley.

Virgie Marie Wright, 1903-1970 Garland Lee Wright, 1906-1940 Millard Elmore Wright, 1907-1942

The story passed down from my grandfather, son of Garland Lee Wright, is that Millard had ran away from home, and Garland went to look for him. I would assume that he was familiar with where Millard would want to run to, becuase he found him in Mobile, Alabama. There, Garland met Viola Courtney, married, and had two children.

Garland Lee Wright and Viola Courtney's wedding photo

Eight years after my grandfather's birth, William Washington Wright's wife Delia passed away at the age of 56 in 1938. Two years later Garland had a burst appendix, was in the hospital, and a nurse left the window open during a particularly brutal winter storm in Mobile, Alabama, and he died from pneumonia in 1940. Two years following this, Millard was accidentally shot in the left eye while training in Nashville, TN for the US Army in WWII.

These strings of deaths left William alone with only one living child, and a widowed daughter in law trying to raise two children by herself. Viola kept my grandfather and his sister in Hurlock for a short while before moving back to Washington, Alabama to finish raising her two children. Virgie Marie stayed single and cared for William Wright until he passed away in 1949. She did not marry until she was 56, ten years after William's death, to a George Wainwright. The two never had children, and Virgie passed away in 1970, George in 1986. George was not buried with our family in the Hurlock cemetery and was instead buried in Brookview cemetery. Virgie Marie Wright and William Washington Wright lay next to Delia, Garland, and Millard in unmarked graves.

Our Wright family now resides almost entirely in and around Mobile, Alabama and Mississippi, with the exception of myself and my brother.

Wright.org - Wright Y-DNA Project

Family Tree DNA.com - Wright

Genealogy Today.com - The Wright Genealogy and Family Tree Page

Genealogy Today.com - Wright New England Early Genealogy

Wright Brothers.org - Wright Beginnings circa 1050

Loc.gov - Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers at the Library of Congress

Forebears.co.uk

Find a Grave - there are 57,543 records for the Wright surname on Find a Grave

Wikipedia - Surname Wright

Wright stuff here.com - the descendants of William Wright (1707-1776) and his wife, Margaret. Who were the original American patriarch and matriarch of a Scotch-Irish Wright family, who resided much of their lives in Augusta Co, Virginia.

Traralgon History.asn.au - From Eighteenth Century London to Twentieth Century Australia

Fellowship First Fleerers.org -Joseph Wright

Trove Digitised Australian Newspapers.gov.au - seach results for Wright surname

Family Old Photos.com - Wright old Family Photos

Genealogy.com - searching Wright surname 9426 results

Wright Ancestry of Maryland - The Wright Ancestry of Caroline, Dorchester, Somerset and Wicomico counties, Maryland (1907)

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Wright_Coat_of_Arms.jpg