The earliest document showing our surname that
I know of is dated 1168 and refers to Holbertus Venator.
(Is this old man Hulbert?) There is also mention of a John Holdebert
in a document dated 1205. Since surnames did not really exist as such
until the middle of the 15th century it will never be possible to trace our
ancestry back further than this without involving a great deal of
supposition and subjective judgment.
Surnames
changed also depending on a person's occupation or where he was born for
example John who lived by an ash tree in a village may come to
be called John Ash to distinguish him from the other Johns in
the village. However, if he took up the occupation of blacksmith he might
later come to be known as John Smith and if he then moved away
from say the village of Ditchingham to the village of Redenhall where they
already had a blacksmith he might then become known as John
Ditchingham. Furthermore friends and relatives from Ditchingham
might still continue to call him John Smith or even revert to
John Ash! Very few written documents were kept since the
literacy rate was very low.
The
higher up the social scale a family moved the more likely it would be that
they would be mentioned in documents. This is why the Wiltshire
derived Hulberts figure in most genealogies because they were a
comparatively wealthy family for a long period of history. Because of this
information it is believed that the Wiltshire Hulberts' family name derives
either from the Norman line or from before the Norman invasion
as the original Anglo-Saxon name Holdbeorht (meaning Gracious
and Bright). Other Hulbert family names probably did derive form local
prowess as Hurlbats on the hurling field, but village
hullbatters were less likely to have their names recorded in documents as
their social standing wasn’t very high. Consequently, we are left with
records only from the noble or landowning Hulberts or those
with official positions in politics, local government or religious
organizations.
The
Hulberts in Scotland.
Before the Vikings invaded France they had already invaded the Orkneys and
Northern Scotland in about 870 AD under the command of Stirgud the
Stout so may well have introduced the Hulbert name
directly to Scotland and not via France and England several years after.
However, it is also possible that Norman
Hulberts who were heavily involved in English
politics after the battle of Hastings may have moved to Scotland during the
12th century along with other Norman families as followers of Earl
David of Huntingdon who would later become King of Scotland. Of course,
later, in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, England and Scotland were
ravaged by religious and political conflict. The Monarchy, the Church and
Parliament fought for supremacy and these conflicts and pogroms were the
catalyst for many to immigrate to the USA.
The Hulbert family tree can be traced back
through the Counties of Essex, Surrey and Wiltshire to Gloucestershire where
Thomas Hulbert was born in about 1777.
(Text taken from an email sent to the Hurlbut/Hurlburt
genealogy site by Jeremy Hulbert)
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