Fox
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Fox Genealogy
If your surname is Fox, it could be of English, German, or Irish origin. The English name was at first Foxe and then Fox. The German word is Fuchs, often anglicized to Fox. The Irish source is either the Gaelic Sionnach or the Anglo-Norman de Bosque. In each case, the root is the animal, the fox.
Fox must have started out as a nickname. Did it refer to someone of red hair, the color of a fox? Or was it someone considered crafty or cunning, characteristics that are attributed to a fox?
England. Where were the foxes? A fourteenth century name distribution shows the Fox surname to be mainly concentated in a broad swathe of Middle England from Nottinghamshire to Cheshire, with a lighter smattering in the southern counties. By the nineteenth century, for whatever reason, the name had spread steadily northwards, to Yorkshire and Lancashire. Did this represent migration? Or some quirks in nomenclature? We have no clues.
Notable Foxes in Tudor and Stuart times came from points further south. Lincolnshire supplied Richard Foxe, the prominent churchman who founded Oxford's Corpus Christi College, and John Foxe, the author of Foxe's Book of Martyrs; George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, was born in a small village just outside Leicester; and from rural Wiltshire came two families, one prominent in politics, the Foxes who were ennobled as the Barons Holland of Foxley, and the other a Quaker family who moved to Falmouth in Cornwall and initiated there various commercial and industrial enterprises. The ship agency business which George Croker Fox started in Falmouth in 1762 still survives today. So too do Caroline Fox's diaries of her meetings and correspondence with prominent Victorians of her day.
The Yorkshire cluster of Foxes are mainly in the South Ridings, particularly in and around the town of Dewsbury. Thomas Fox was born there in 1591 and there was the redoubtable Squire Fox in the eighteenth century. A Victorian instiitution was Fox's biscuits in nearby Batley. Another family business was the curiously named "shoddy and mango" merchant. And Dewsbury produced in the twentieth century Leslie Fox, the noted mathematician, and Sir Marcus Fox, the Conservative politician. A genealogist has traced his own family in Roeburndale near Lancaster back to the early 1700's. Interestingly enough, he has seen the DNA's of a number of Foxes in Yorkshire and Lancashire and found little genetic connection between them.
Ireland. If there was no Fox clan in England, there definitely was in Ireland, or rather two of them, the Sionnach Foxes, who claim an ancient heritage, and the de Bosque Foxes who came with the Anglo-Norman influx in the twelfth century. The Sionnach heartland was County Offaly in the middle of Ireland; the de Bosques were mainly to be found in County Limerick, in particlar in Doon. When the English began to enforce the anglicization of names, both Sionnachs and de Bosques became Foxes (although some Sionnachs did opt for Shinnick instread). In Gaelic speaking schools, a distinction did remain between the two names.
Tadg O'Catharnaigh, the clan chief who died in 1086, was the first to adopt the Sionnach (Fox) name. Their base was County Offaly, in an area between what is now Clara and Ballycumber (the Rock of the Fox, an ancient ceremonial place, still exists there). They were an aggressive warlike clan, engaged in raiding against their neighbors and fighting the Anglo-Norman presence in the region. The last of their chiefs was Hubert Fox. He resisted but lost against the forces of Cromwell in the 1650's. As a result, his estates were confiscated and the family scattered. One who did well for himself, as a merchant in Dublin, was Patrick Fox. He acquired Foxhall in County Longford and his family became landed gentry there. But Foxhall like Kilcoursey castle in Offaly is just a ruin today. The last of this line were two sisters, Amelia and Evelyn Fox.
America. If you are a Fox in America, you could be of English, German, or Irish origin. One early arrival was Thomas Fox who settled in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1640's. In 1819, the Rev. James Angel Fox moved to Mississippi and later generations lived in Louisiana. Charles Fox, a descendant of another early Fox immigrant into Massachusetts, headed West in the 1860's and was one of the founding fathers of San Diego in California.
Justinian Fox from the Fox family in Falmouth had arrived in Philadelphia in 1686. A descendant, Joseph Fox, was Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly during the Stamp Tax uproar and the family later moved to Foxburg in western Pennsylvania. The family story is recounted in Joe Fox's 2006 book, The Fox Family of Philadelphia.
John Fox had arrived in Virginia from Ireland in 1649. His descendants crossed the Wilderness Road to Kentucky in 1790. John Fox Jr, born in bluegrass country there, became well-known for his novels about the mountain people of the region. He settled in Big Stone Gap, Virginia where there is now a John Fox Jr. museum. Meanwhile, the Fox/Fuchs immigration from Germany seems to have started in the 1700's, into New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
The influx from Ireland gathered pace as the nineteenth century proceeded. William Fox, for instance, came to Wisconsin from West Meath in the 1830's; Richard Fox to Ohio from Dublin in 1841; Francis and Mary Fox to Tennessee from Roscommon in 1848; and Miles and Bridget Fox to Bytown in Ontario from Sligo in the 1870's. There were also more Fox/Fuchs from Germany. Two well-known descendants of these immigrants are William Fox, who founded the Fox Film Corporation, and Vicente Fox, the President until recently of Mexico.
Select Fox Miscellany
Select Fox Names
Tadg O'Catharnaigh, the Irish clan chief who died in 1086, was the first to adopt the Sionnach (Fox) name.
John Foxe published his Foxe's Book of Martyrs in 1563, a book that helped inflame anti-Catholic sentiment in England at the time.
George Fox, born in Leicestershire in 1624, was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, i.e. the Quaker movement. His wife, Margaret Fell Fox, provided him with key early support from her Lancashire base at Swarthmoor Hall.
Charles James Fox was a leading Whig politician of the Regency age, bested, however, by his arch-rival William Pitt.
John Fox Jr wrote books such as Trail of the Lonesome Pine and The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come which were the first million-copy sellers in the United States.
William Fox, born Wilhelm Fuchs, started the Fox Film Corporation in 1915, the forerunner to today's 20th Century Fox and the Fox Television Network.
Vicente Fox was President of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. Although born in Mexico, his paternal line traces back to a German immigrant Fuchs family that settled in Cincinnati.
Select Foxes Today
If your surname is Fox, it could be of English, German, or Irish origin. The English name was at first Foxe and then Fox. The German word is Fuchs, often anglicized to Fox. The Irish source is either the Gaelic Sionnach or the Anglo-Norman de Bosque. In each case, the root is the animal, the fox.
Fox must have started out as a nickname. Did it refer to someone of red hair, the color of a fox? Or was it someone considered crafty or cunning, characteristics that are attributed to a fox?
Select
Fox
Resources on
The
Internet
- The Fox Clan in Ireland. Fox clan history.
- The Fox Family from Roscommon. Descendant genealogies - Fox family.
- Foxes from Roeburndale in Lancashire. Fox English history and family genealogy.
- Foxes in Falmouth. A Quaker Fox family.
- Foxes in New England and the
South. A family genealogy.
England. Where were the foxes? A fourteenth century name distribution shows the Fox surname to be mainly concentated in a broad swathe of Middle England from Nottinghamshire to Cheshire, with a lighter smattering in the southern counties. By the nineteenth century, for whatever reason, the name had spread steadily northwards, to Yorkshire and Lancashire. Did this represent migration? Or some quirks in nomenclature? We have no clues.
Notable Foxes in Tudor and Stuart times came from points further south. Lincolnshire supplied Richard Foxe, the prominent churchman who founded Oxford's Corpus Christi College, and John Foxe, the author of Foxe's Book of Martyrs; George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, was born in a small village just outside Leicester; and from rural Wiltshire came two families, one prominent in politics, the Foxes who were ennobled as the Barons Holland of Foxley, and the other a Quaker family who moved to Falmouth in Cornwall and initiated there various commercial and industrial enterprises. The ship agency business which George Croker Fox started in Falmouth in 1762 still survives today. So too do Caroline Fox's diaries of her meetings and correspondence with prominent Victorians of her day.
The Yorkshire cluster of Foxes are mainly in the South Ridings, particularly in and around the town of Dewsbury. Thomas Fox was born there in 1591 and there was the redoubtable Squire Fox in the eighteenth century. A Victorian instiitution was Fox's biscuits in nearby Batley. Another family business was the curiously named "shoddy and mango" merchant. And Dewsbury produced in the twentieth century Leslie Fox, the noted mathematician, and Sir Marcus Fox, the Conservative politician. A genealogist has traced his own family in Roeburndale near Lancaster back to the early 1700's. Interestingly enough, he has seen the DNA's of a number of Foxes in Yorkshire and Lancashire and found little genetic connection between them.
Ireland. If there was no Fox clan in England, there definitely was in Ireland, or rather two of them, the Sionnach Foxes, who claim an ancient heritage, and the de Bosque Foxes who came with the Anglo-Norman influx in the twelfth century. The Sionnach heartland was County Offaly in the middle of Ireland; the de Bosques were mainly to be found in County Limerick, in particlar in Doon. When the English began to enforce the anglicization of names, both Sionnachs and de Bosques became Foxes (although some Sionnachs did opt for Shinnick instread). In Gaelic speaking schools, a distinction did remain between the two names.
Tadg O'Catharnaigh, the clan chief who died in 1086, was the first to adopt the Sionnach (Fox) name. Their base was County Offaly, in an area between what is now Clara and Ballycumber (the Rock of the Fox, an ancient ceremonial place, still exists there). They were an aggressive warlike clan, engaged in raiding against their neighbors and fighting the Anglo-Norman presence in the region. The last of their chiefs was Hubert Fox. He resisted but lost against the forces of Cromwell in the 1650's. As a result, his estates were confiscated and the family scattered. One who did well for himself, as a merchant in Dublin, was Patrick Fox. He acquired Foxhall in County Longford and his family became landed gentry there. But Foxhall like Kilcoursey castle in Offaly is just a ruin today. The last of this line were two sisters, Amelia and Evelyn Fox.
America. If you are a Fox in America, you could be of English, German, or Irish origin. One early arrival was Thomas Fox who settled in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1640's. In 1819, the Rev. James Angel Fox moved to Mississippi and later generations lived in Louisiana. Charles Fox, a descendant of another early Fox immigrant into Massachusetts, headed West in the 1860's and was one of the founding fathers of San Diego in California.
Justinian Fox from the Fox family in Falmouth had arrived in Philadelphia in 1686. A descendant, Joseph Fox, was Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly during the Stamp Tax uproar and the family later moved to Foxburg in western Pennsylvania. The family story is recounted in Joe Fox's 2006 book, The Fox Family of Philadelphia.
John Fox had arrived in Virginia from Ireland in 1649. His descendants crossed the Wilderness Road to Kentucky in 1790. John Fox Jr, born in bluegrass country there, became well-known for his novels about the mountain people of the region. He settled in Big Stone Gap, Virginia where there is now a John Fox Jr. museum. Meanwhile, the Fox/Fuchs immigration from Germany seems to have started in the 1700's, into New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
The influx from Ireland gathered pace as the nineteenth century proceeded. William Fox, for instance, came to Wisconsin from West Meath in the 1830's; Richard Fox to Ohio from Dublin in 1841; Francis and Mary Fox to Tennessee from Roscommon in 1848; and Miles and Bridget Fox to Bytown in Ontario from Sligo in the 1870's. There were also more Fox/Fuchs from Germany. Two well-known descendants of these immigrants are William Fox, who founded the Fox Film Corporation, and Vicente Fox, the President until recently of Mexico.
Select Fox Miscellany
If you would like to read more, click on the miscellany page for
further stories and accounts:
Select Fox Names
Tadg O'Catharnaigh, the Irish clan chief who died in 1086, was the first to adopt the Sionnach (Fox) name.
John Foxe published his Foxe's Book of Martyrs in 1563, a book that helped inflame anti-Catholic sentiment in England at the time.
George Fox, born in Leicestershire in 1624, was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, i.e. the Quaker movement. His wife, Margaret Fell Fox, provided him with key early support from her Lancashire base at Swarthmoor Hall.
Charles James Fox was a leading Whig politician of the Regency age, bested, however, by his arch-rival William Pitt.
John Fox Jr wrote books such as Trail of the Lonesome Pine and The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come which were the first million-copy sellers in the United States.
William Fox, born Wilhelm Fuchs, started the Fox Film Corporation in 1915, the forerunner to today's 20th Century Fox and the Fox Television Network.
Vicente Fox was President of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. Although born in Mexico, his paternal line traces back to a German immigrant Fuchs family that settled in Cincinnati.
Select Foxes Today
- 92,000 in the UK (most numerous in Gloucestershire)
- 51,000 in America (most numerous in California).
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