Bower

Bower family page

This family first appeared in Jersey records in 1781 when soldier William Bower married Elizabeth Vibert in St Lawrence, just seven months after the Battle of Jersey. Perhaps William fought in the battle in January that year, when the French were defeated in the Royal Square A St Brelade register for 1586 showing the burial of Brelade de Bowery Record Search Direct links to lists of baptisms, marriages and burials for the Bower family can be found under Family Records opposite. If you want to search for records for a spelling variant of Bower, or for any other family name, just click below on the first letter of the family name you are interested in. This will open a new tab in your browser giving you a list of family names beginning with that letter, for which there are baptism records in our database of half a million church and public registry records. You can also select marriages or burials. Select the name you want and when the list of records is displayed you can easily refine the search, choosing a single parish, given name(s) and/or start and end dates. The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found. New records From August 2020 we have started adding records from non-Anglican churches, and this process will continue as more records, held by Jersey Archive, are digitised and indexed. Our database now includes buttons enabling a search within registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These records will automatically appear within the results of any search made from this page. A--B--C--D--E--F--G--H--I--J--K--L--M--N--O--P--Q--R--S--T--U--V--W--X--Y--Z If you can help with information about the Bower family, please contact editcontact@theislandwiki.org, using Jerripedia as the subject of your email. We are particularly interested in information which will help create further family trees, family histories and photographs A blue link anywhere in the text will lead you to another page with more information on this family

Origins of surname

This is an Anglo-Saxon surname of somewhat doubtful derivation. It might be derived from the word bur, meaning a cottage, the suffix -er meaning 'dweller at'. It could also have been the name for a house servant. An alternative view is that it is a variant of Bowyer, a maker of bows.

Early records

The first baptisms in Jersey records were the children of William Bowyer and Elizabeth Vibert in St Mary from 1781 to 1789. The couple married in St Lawrence in 1781, three days after the baptism of the first child.

Variants

• Bower
• Bowers
• Bowyer

Family records

Family trees

• Descendants of William Bower and Elizabeth Vibert

Church records

Tips for using these links

• Bower baptisms in Jersey
• Bower marriages in Jersey (groom)
• Bower marriages in Jersey (bride)
• Bower burials in Jersey

Great War service

Notes on our list, abbreviations used etc

Sons of Philip Francis Bower and Cecilia Queree

• Arthur Le Blancq Bower (1894- ) (St My) Sapper, RE
• Snowden Bower (1898- ) (St My) Gunner, Royal Field Artillery

• Eli Bowers (1885-1943) (Staffordshire) son of Eli and Fanny, Lieutenant, RMIJ, Prisoner of War Camp Adjutant

Family wills

• Bower family wills from 1663 to 1980 held by Jersey Archive

Burial records

• Bower burial records 1820-1978

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

The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.

New records

Starting in August 2020 we are adding 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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