General Notes

WILLIAM ALDRICH

William , Bailiff of Yarmouth ALDRICH was born about 1421 in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. He died after 1468 in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. He was Bailiff of Yarmouth, Norfolk County, England, in 1468.
Dates from LDS Ancestral File.
Info from Allen D. Aldridge of Durham, NC:

Notes from Norwich, England, Summer 1980, Connie Aldridge Service:

The Norwich Library has a historical section in which documents referring to the Aldridges can be found. Some ancient wills are on file there, and the "Mayors of Norwich" by Cozens, Hardy and Kent, which contains information I have excerpted. The coat of arms is authenticated in The Visitations of Norfolk. A trip to St. Clements Church, close to the Tourist Office, is very worthwhile. The Aldridge's apparently attended church and were buried there. The Aldrich home, now the Labor Exchange, is next door to the church. Over the doorway are the dates of John's terms as Mayor of Norwich in the 1500's. On the other side of the church is a tavern, which was formerly the home of another mayor, Alexander Thurston, who married John Aldrich's daughter. The mantelpiece in the tavern is the original one from the home and bears on one side the merchant's seal of the owner, on the other the Aldrich (later Aldridge) coat of arms, which is a "fess vert, bull passant". The coat of arms is very simple. I am told that the older the coat of arms, the simpler it is. As more and more people were declared eligible, the coatsof arms became more complicated so they would be distinctive.

The change from Aldrich to Aldridge in the 1500's is easily explained since Norwich is pronounced Norridge. Aldrich obviously went the same way. The spelling change appeared in 1553.

Quotes from Cozene, Hardy and Kent: The Mayors of Norwich, 1403-1835:

Thomas Aldrich, a draper, was sheriff in 1497 and mayor in 1507 and 1516. During both years of his mayoralty he went to London on city business. His merchant's mark (dated 1510) is recorded by Ewing. His father and grandfather, each named William, had been bailiffs of Yarmouth. [Notes continued in individual records of subsequent generations]

Source: Frederick Ford, Ancestry.com
August 2001
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Source: Sharon Roach, Ancestry.com
January 2004

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http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=2702560&st=1
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Notes: Origin of the Name

Notes: One writer says the name derives from a Saxon word - "Aldred" meaning old or ancient - also "Ald" and "Eld" means old. The first syllable of the name Aldridge, viz, "Ald" is a corruption of the English word "Auld." The last syllable is from a word meaning "point of land or ridge." The
Welsh pronunciation is "redge," sometimes sounding nearly like "retch." When our ancient people decided to have a surname, they were living in a primitive manner in the hills of Wales as freemen. To designate themselves, they were known as the people from the "Auld Ridge,"
this being the designation of their chain of hills, which was known far and wide as "The Auld Ridge."

Notes: History of the Name

Notes: One of the first references to this name in England is Aldred, or Ealdred, or Alred who became Abbot of Tavistock in 1027, Bishop of Worcester in 1044, and Archbishop of York in 1060. This man died at York in 1069. He undertook several diplomatic missions to the Continent, and was the first English bishop to visit Jerusalem in 1058. It has been alleged that he crowned Harold in 1066; he certainly crowned William the Conqueror, and proved a faithful servant to the Norman king. He was active and courageous, but ambitious, greedy and self-seeking.

Notes: Families bearing this name were to be found at early dates in the English counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Oxford, Derby, Surrey, Hants, Stafford and London. Records indicate that they were, for the most part, of the landed gentry and yeomanry of Great Britain. In early American records the name of Aldrich and Aldridge are used interchangeably and, in some cases, are even confused with the name Eldridge or Eldredge.

Notes: One of the earliest known lines of the family in England was that of William Aldrich, who was Bailiff of Yarmouth, County Norfolk, as early as the year 1468 and possibly before. Another early branch of the family in England was that of Robert Aldriche or Aldrich, who resided in
Staffordshire before the beginning of the 17th century, having been born about 1575. While it is not definitely known from which of the several lines of the family in England the first emigrant of the name to America was descended, it is generally believed that most, if not all, of the Aldrichs and the Aldridges derive from a common ancestor of a remote period.

Notes: One Robert Aldridge appears to be the first Aldridge that set his foot on the soil of the new country called America. What day or year he arrived is not known, or if he had a family. The record only says, "Muster of inhabitants across the water at Virginia, 1624/25. Those that lie in
ye Treasurors Plantation at James City ", on the dead list "at these Plantations" is the name of Robert Aldridge.

Notes: Robert Aldred left England in June 1635 for Virginia. Robert Aldred was brought into the county of Nansemond, Virginia 1650 by John Perrott and may be the ancestor of the Aldred family that later appears in North Carolina.

Source: Lauri Smith, Ancestry.com
November 2004
http://awtc.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:2893476&id=I562052307