Branson


Select Branson Surname Genealogy

The Branson surname is derived from a place-name Branson or Branston, of which at one time there were many - mainly in the Midlands.   Branston means a farm (tun) cleared by burning (brandr).  Branston pickle originated from the Branston community of Burton-on-Trent in Derbyshire.  Other Branstons were in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, and Suffolk.

Branson is the main surname spelling.  But there are some Branstons.

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England.  The first surname sightings appear to have been in Suffolk.  A Gilbert de Branteston can be found in the Suffolk pipe rolls of 1200.  The will of Edmund Branston was recorded at Capel St. Mary in 1465 and these Branstons were there a century or so later.  Then there were Bransons in Berkshire and Leicestershire.

The largest number of Bransons have come from Leicestershire.  The death of Elizabeth Branson was recorded in Husbands Bosworth in 1601; William Branson was born in Whitwick in the 1740's; and the Richard Branson who joined the army was born in Anstey in 1781.  There were Bransons also to be found by the early 1800's in Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Buckinghamshire.  

One Branson line started in India in the early 1800's, but returned to England and Great Yarmouth in Norfolk later on in the century.  Sir George Branson, born there in 1871, was a judge and Privy Councillor.  His grandson is the entrepreneur Richard Branson.

America.  Various Bransons seem to have come to America in the late 1600's or early 1700's.  One branch were Quakers and came to Chester, Pennsylvania.  Other Bransons settled in Springfield, New Jersey.  Later Bransons of this line moved to Virginia and to Missouri where there is a Branson township in the Ozark mountains today.

"Ruben Branson, a storekeeper and schoolmaster in his late 20's, started a general store near the mouth of the Roark creek and the White river in 1882.  The general store had a post office called 'the Branson Post Office.'"

Ruben died in 1907 and was buried nearby.  Five years later the town was called Branson.  Today there are not many Bransons in America.  But the largest number of them are in Missouri.

Another Ruben Branson, one covered by his nephew Ivan Branson in his 1982 book Bones of the Bransons, was to be found in California gold mining country and had roots going back to Tennessee.

Australia.  Bransons were farm laborers from Titchmarsh in Huntingdonshire in the early 19th century and found the going hard.  They decided to emigrate and they left for South Australia in stages between 1848 and 1853.  Their descendants are numerous there today.       

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Clive Branson was an English artist and poet who fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the communists.
Richard Branson is the entrepreneur and media figure who founded the Virgin Group.

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  • 3,000 in the UK (most numerous in Leicestershire)
  • 4,000 in America (most numerous in Missouri) 
  • 1,000 elsewhere (most numerous in Australia)

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