Richardson

Richardson family page

The Richardson family at Bas Rozel in 1883

Record Search

Direct links to lists of baptisms, marriages and burials for the Richardson family can be found under Family Records opposite. If you want to search for records for a spelling variant of Richardson, 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 Richardson family, please contact editorial@jerripedia.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

Pre-1500 arms researched by Julian Wilson

Origin of Surname

This surname is a patronymic form of a very ancient personal name, and means "son of Richard". The derivation of Richard is from the Olde English ric, power and heard, meaning brave, hardy. It is originally Anglo-Saxon in origin, but was made very popular in England by the Normans after the Conquest of 1066. The surname was first recorded in Scotland in the mid 14th Century and the first spelling of the surname in its modern form is found in the Yorkshire Poll Tax Returns of 1381, in one William Richardson.

Richardson-Aubin wedding

Early records

Ralph Richardson, presumed to have been an officer in the army of Richard III, came to Jersey after the King was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. He must have had previous connections to Jersey because he became a tenant of the Seigneur of Rosel and is believed to have farmed 70 vergées in St Martin. There is some dispute about the timings because family tradition has it that he arrived immediately after the battle, the last significant engagement of the English Civil War, and took up farming then.

However, 19th century historian J Bertrand Payne, in his Armorial of Jersey says that Ralph took up farming in St Martin in 1507, four years after the birth of his son Thomas in England and the death of his wife.

Ralph married Jane Mychiel, daughter of John, in Jersey, but their son Thomas was born in England. He had a son, also Thomas, who stayed in England and his lineage is traced in one of the trees below. Another of Ralph's children, Edmund, was born in Jersey, and other sons of Thomas also established families in the island. One branch moved to Guernsey, where their surname was corrupted to Reserson. The two island families were united by the marriage of Clement Richardson and Jacquine Reserson in the 18th century.

This was very much a St Martin family and the first baptism was recorded there in 1599. Although the family largely remained in the parish, it did spread into neighbouring Grouville, Trinity and St Saviour, and ultimately throughout the island, most notably in St Ouen.

Variants

• Richardson
• Le Richardson
• Richerson
• Richard
• Richards

Family records

Family trees

Descendants of Ralph Richardson was the only Richardson tree on the site from 2012. It was followed a year later by Descendants of Philippe Richardson, with no links between the two.

With assistance from Richardson researchers we have decided in 2016 that this long-established Jersey family, originating in St Martin and mainly based there, deserved much fuller coverage. The long Ralph Richardson tree was our starting point, but it was lacking in much detail, with siblings missing from many generations. Rather than create one new, large tree we created a new header tree with links to two main descendancies.

• Descendants of Ralph Richardson, the original tree, now superseded by new trees below
• Descendants of Ralph Richardson - 3 Added 2016 The new header tree with links to the two descendancies which follow
• Descendants of Jean Richardson Added 2016
• Descendants of Clement Richardson Added 2016
• Descendants of Hiou Richardson Added 2016

It is likely that the short trees below all link in some way to the main tree starting with Ralph Richardson, but we have not been able to establish those links. There are many Richardson marriages in our database which do not link to baptisms either of the groom or descendants.

• Descendants of Thomas Richardson
• Descendants of Abraham Richardson
• Descendants of Nicolas Richardson
• Descendants of Hugh Richardson
• Descendants of Francois Richardson
• Descendants of Philippe Richardson
• Descendants of Philippe Richardson - 2, a different Philippe

Descendancies for four different Jeans to the one above

• Descendants of Jean Richardson - 2
• Descendants of Jean Richardson - 3
• Descendants of Jean Richardson - 4
• Descendants of Jean Richardson - 5

Family histories

• Richardsons of La Ferme, St Martin

Church records

Tips for using these links

Richard

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

Richards

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

Richardson

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

Newspaper records

• 1920 Evening Post report of the funeral of Mrs P M Richardson

Great War service

• Richardson family members who served in World War 1

Family wills

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

• Richardson burial records 1820-1978

Family businesses

Family homes

• Bas Rozel, St Martin

Family album

The bridesmaids at the 1938 wedding of Gordon Stewart Newham Richardson and Mary Elizabeth de Gruchy. The groom was a Lieutenant in the 2nd Gurkhas, the son of Lieut-General Charles Richardson, and the bride was the daughter of Francis Arthur Laley de Gruchy, a retired Major, of St Peter

13-year-old Gerald Richardson on Anne Port slip in 1938

Threshing at the Richard farm, La Grande Maison, St John. Mr Richard (top centre) owned the threshing machine and also made cider

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

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