Profile managers: Patrick Barnum [send private message] and One Name Studies WikiTree [send private message]

This is a One-Name Study to collect in one place all that is known about the surname BARNUM and its variants BARNHAM and BARNAM

The Barnum Name Study is also registered with the Guild of One Name Studies.

There are 7,720 profiles on WikiTree for the surname Barnum and its variants, of which 7,530 (97.5 percent) are linked to this study. The remaining 190 Barnum profiles are either unlisted (living non-members) or the personal profiles of members or guest members on WikiTree. In either case, they can only be accessed by their profile managers or persons on their trusted lists.

We're working to include them all and you're welcome to add any Barnum profiles you manage. We hope that researchers like you will join this study to help make it a valuable reference for people studying our family's lines of descent. To join, please Patrick W. Barnum. Then, add the Barnum Name Study sticker to your Barnum profiles, post your questions to the bulletin board, and share the details of your surname research.

Click here for an INDEX of the profiles included in the Barnum Name Study

NOTE: If you find a connection in your family tree to a Barnum ancestor or spouse who doesn't appear on WikiTree, or who lacks a connection to ancestors or descendants, the project leader Patrick W. Barnum may be able to provide additional assistance. He has access to many Barnum profiles that require additions and clarification because they were created via a GEDCOM upload or haven't yet been uploaded to WikiTree for various reasons but have valid source citations and connections to other profiles.

Sir Francis Barnham, M.P. (1576-1646) discussed in his journal the origin of the surname and family of Barnham. He stated that, “Our Name as we have it by tradition, strengthened with probable circumstances, and some good records (which I have heard some of my friends say they have seene) was first gentilized, or at least advanced, by Sir Walter Barnham, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the time of Richard II, and soe continued in a flowrishinge estate (at a place called Barnham in Suffolke not far from Thetford, where divers descents of them lye now buried) till the time of Henry VII, all which I have received from my grandmother, father, and uncles, who spake it with much confidence, as being deliverd to them, by theire friends of the former age, and the truth of it assured by divers records, however it is not that which I will binde on as an infallible truth, because I my self have not seene that which may soe absolutly assure it, and because I for myne owne parte care not to fetch a pedegree farther then from the certaine memory of a grandfather that was rich and honest, and a father that was virtuous and wise….”

When surnames first began to be used in England, several persons living in an English town named Barnham adopted the name of the town as a personal identifier. Additional research into place names has led to a clarification of the origin of the Barnham surname. It is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is a locational name for any of the towns or villages called Barnham in the English counties of Sussex, Norfolk, and Staffordshire. Barnham in Sussex (the home of Sir Walter Barnham) is recorded as “Berneham” in the Domesday Book of 1086, while the two places in Norfolk and Staffordshire appear in the same source as “Bernham”. All of those place names have the same derivation.

The place-names Barnham and Bernham arise from a combination of the pre-7th-century Old English byname Beorn(a) [from Beorn (Old Norse Barn), a warrior] with the Old English suffix “ham”, meaning homestead or village. The name Beorn, in addition to its meaning of warrior (or freeman in Anglo-Saxon society), was also a name used by some noblemen (since “nobleman” was an alternate meaning). It is related to the Scandinavian names Björn (Swedish) and Bjørn (Norwegian and Danish), meaning bear. The word Baron also developed from Beorn. The basic meaning of Barnham in Old English, then, was “the homestead (ham) of the family or followers of a man named Beorn”.

It was long thought that Sir Walter Barnham was among the first bearers of our surname, since the adoption of surnames in England dates from only about 1200 to 1300 C.E. However, according to Burke, J. (1847). A General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the arms of de Bernham (Norfolk) are blazoned Sa. a cross between four crescents argent. Since that blazoning is identical to arms later granted to several of Sir Walter's descendants, it seems logical to assume that Sir Walter and his family are descendants of the de Bernham family, which dates from 1070. (See the profiles of Godwin Halden and Walter de Bernham, where the relationship between the two families is discussed further).

Although the surname Barnum is relatively well known, due to its association with our illustrious ancestor Phineas Taylor "P.T." Barnum, it remains relatively rare. According to the Forebears genealogy portal, Barnum is the 58,337th most common surname in the world, with approximately 8,668 bearers, mostly in the United States. The earlier spelling Barnham is the 398,612th most common surname in the world, with approximately 883 bearers. It is most prevalent in England. An even earlier spelling, Bernham or de Bernham is rarer still, ranking as the 3,730,171st most common surname in the world. Approximately 28 people bear this surname, which is most prevalent in the United States.

Thomas Barnum (1625-1695) was the immigrant ancestor of the Barnum family in North America, having emigrated from England to the Connecticut Colony in about 1640. The Barnum Family Genealogy website contains the profiles of nearly 30,000 of his relatives and descendants, their spouses, and children. Although most of his living descendants are residents of the United States and Canada, branches of the family have also been documented in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, New South Wales, and Germany, among other countries.

Because of an apparent connection to Thomas Barnum the immigrant ancestor, the ancestors of the Barnham family in Great Britain are most likely also the ancestors of those residents of other countries who today bear the surnames Barnham, Barnam, and Barnum (the latter two of distinctly American origin).

Despite the singular uniformity of descent in North America, the same can’t be said of the European record. As a result of the many linguistic changes that have affected the English language during the more than nine centuries that have passed since the first recorded appearance of our surname, numerous other spellings have been encountered in the genealogical and historical record. References have been found to, among others, Simon de Bernham (1273), Willelmus Barnum (1379), and Stephen Barneham (1592). The current English spelling of Barnham first appears in historical documents dating from the mid-14th century and its predecessor de Bernham dates from 1070.

Surname Variants

Although the principal spelling of our surname in England was Barnham, the most common spelling today is Barnum. Additionally, a small minority of our family members appear to have used the spelling of Barnam. Those are the three primary spellings of the surname found in the historical record and all are included in this study. All three of them appear to be descended from the original Barnham (or de Bernham) ancestor in England.

After he was awarded the lordship of Haylesdon by William the Conquerer in 1070, Godwin Halden resided at Bernham Manor, Norfolk, and took his surname from that place. The vagaries of medieval English spelling over several centuries seem to have changed the spelling of de Bernham (Norfolk) to Barnham (Suffolk).

The surname Burnham has a distinct origin from the surnames Barnum, Barnham, and Barnam and it is not in any way linguistically related to them. However, one member of our family, Stephen Baker Barnum (1790-1860), changed his surname from Barnum to Burnham to avoid any association with the showman P.T. Barnum. Accordingly, his descendants are genetically members of the Barnum family and are included in this study.

Resources

• The Founding Ancestor Godwin Halden
• List of Barnum profiles on Wikitree
• List of Barnham profiles on Wikitree
• List of Barnam profiles on Wikitree
• List of de Bernham profiles on Wikitree
• G2G feed of questions tagged "Barnum"
• G2G feed of questions tagged "Barnham"
• G2G feed of questions tagged "Barnam"
• Orphaned Barnum profiles on WikiTree
• Orphaned Barnham profiles on WikiTree
• Orphaned Barnam profiles on WikiTree
• Unsourced Barnum profiles on WikiTree
• Unsourced Barnham profiles on WikiTree
• Unsourced Barnam profiles on WikiTree
• Unconnected Barnum profiles on WikiTree
• Unconnected Barnham profiles on WikiTree
• Unconnected Barnam profiles on WikiTree
• British Surnames: Barnum
• British Surnames: Barnham
• British Surnames: Barnam
• Internet Surname Dababase: Barnum
• Internet Surname Dababase: Barnham
• Internet Surname Dababase: Barnam