Origins of surname
The name probably indicates someone who lived in a valley - French 'val'. However, this presents grammatical problems. The French for 'of the valley' is either du val, or de la vallée. There is no French valle. Du Val and Duval are common Jersey names. The names Delaval, Delavale and Delavalle were established in England, particularly Northumberland, probably back to the 11th and 12th centuries, so may have arrived at the time of the Norman Conquest.
The Jersey family appears to originate in England, probably this same Northumberland family.
There is another possible derivation, from the town of Laval in Brittany, close to St Malo, but followers of William the Conqueror who settled in England after the Conquest are more likely to have come from Normandy.
Early records
This was not a long-lived surname in Jersey. It first appeared in 1699 with the marriage of Robert Delavalle from England to Marie Burnel in St Helier. This is the only record with this spelling, Delaval being found in the baptism records of the couple's seven children. There are no Delaval baptism records after 1802, and no burial records with this spelling. However, there are burial records for Deleval in the first two decades of the 19th century, but no baptism records with that spelling.
Variants
- Delaval
- Delavalle
- Deleval
Family records
Family trees
Church records
- Delaval baptisms in Jersey
- Delaval marriages in Jersey (groom)
- Delaval marriages in Jersey (bride)
- Delaval burials in Jersey
Tips
The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.
We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling
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New records
Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form
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