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Position:Home>Genealogy> How many peoples last name is clark and family roots irish?


Question:Im wondering thats all


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Im wondering thats all

Lots.

You can't get any closer than that. Sorry.

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/...
has about 3,000 entries with surname Clark and birthplace "Ireland" but
1) Some are duplicates
2) Not everyone adds "Ireland" to the birth place if, for instance, it says "Ulster" or "Dublin" or "Cork"
3) Not all people born there are on the data base

42

1,639,746

Clark is not a specifically Irish surname.

O'Cleirigh meant "grandson of the scribe" in Irish Gaelic. The surname Cleary came from Cleireach of Connacht, who was born around 829 A.D. Clerk/Clark is the oldest true surname recorded anywhere in Europe. The Irish branch, of this family group, settled in Derry and Donegal, Ireland; where they became famous poets. In Cavan, Ireland, the name was anglized as Clarke.
http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/Clar...

This long-established surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is from a medieval occupational name for a scribe or secretary, or for a member of a minor religious order. The word "clerc", from the Olde English pre 7th Century "cler(e)c", priest, originally denoted a member of a religious order only, but since the clergy of minor orders were allowed to marry and so found families, the surname could become established. It should also be noted that during the Middle Ages virtually the only people who were able to read and write were members of religious orders and it was therefore natural that the term "clark" or "clerk" would come to be used of any literate man, particularly the professional secretary and the scholar. One Richerius Clericus, Hampshire, appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. The surname was first recorded in the early 12th Century (see below), and other early recordings include: Reginald Clerc, noted in the Curia Regis Rolls of Rutland (1205), and John le Clerk, registered in the "Transcripts of Charters relating to the Gilbertine Houses", Lincolnshire (1272). In the modern idiom the surname can be found as Clark, Clarke, Clerk and Clerke. Richard Clarke was noted as a passenger on the "Mayflower" bound for the New World in 1620. Lawrence Clark, together with his wife, Margaret, and son, Thomas, were famine emigrants who sailed from Liverpool aboard the "Shenandoah", bound for New York in March 1846. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Willelm le Clerec, which was dated 1100, in "The Old English Byname Register of Somerset", during the reign of King Henry 1, known as "The Lion of Justice", 1100 - 1135.

http://www.surnamedb.com/surname.aspx?na...