Geary

Origins of surname

The Guerrier family who lived in Grouville in the 1840s and '50s changed their name to Geary. The family came from France via Alderney and, because we were not aware of any confirmed instances of an immigrant surname being anglicised in Jersey in the 19th century (it happened frequently with Jerseymen who emigrated to the USA and elsewhere) we could not understand how the spelling Geary arose.

We have now been informed by a member of the Geary family, still present in Jersey today, that there is a simple explanation. The Guerriers were seafarers and sailed all over the world. In or about the 1860s, the men who had previously been listed as Guerrier began to be recorded as Geary in the Seaman Benefit Register which had to be completed for each voyage. The person recording the surnames wrote them down as he thought they should be spelt and the change was perpetuated in subsequent church and census records

Guerrier, from the French guerre = war, referred to a soldier. Geary, an English name, is said to have a variety of possible derivations, one of which is a soldier who carried a spear - old-German geri.

Early records

There are Guerrier births registered in Grouville and neighbouring St Martin in the 1840s and Geary baptisms in St Helier from 1820 onwards.

Variants

• Geary
• Guerrier

Family records

Family trees

• Descendants of Louis Guerrier, the family which became Geary

Church records

Tips for using these links

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

Great War service

• Geary family members who served in World War 1

Occupation records

• Geary Occupation identity cards

Family businesses

• 

  Donald Geary ran Attracta Signs with Philip Dimmick in 1948

Family photographs

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  Arthur Clarence Geary

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  Elizabeth Guerrier, nee Frimpain

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  Geary sisters

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  Stanley Syvret and his wife Ivy, nee Geary

• 

  John George Guerrier

• 

  Ivy Grace Geary

Family gravestones

Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs

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  Mont a l’Abbe cemetery

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  Mont a l’Abbe cemetery

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

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

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

Notes and references