Derrickson Name Study

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Dearixon, Derickson, Derrickson, Dirickson Y-DNA Paternal Lineage Project

The project uses Y-DNA to discover male lineages. It is open to anyone interested in Dearixon, Derickson, Derrickson and Dirickson family history. Inquire about a free test.

In Peter Stebbins Craigs' detailed work on New Sweden, there are a number of possibly related names. Craig lists the transcription in each case and then his own take on a standardization:

Wharton's Census 1671 [was damaged by a fire in 1911; letters in brackets are Craigs' amendments from a transcription that predated the fire]: New Castle:

• [Gil]bart Dericke; Craigs' translation/contextualization "Gysbert Dircksen" (a Dutch name)

1693 Census of the Delaware: Wicaco Congregation:

• Olle Dirichsson, trans/cont "Olle Dericksson" (#67)

Crane Hook Congregation*:

• Anders Dirichsson, trans/cont "Anders Dericksson" (#204)

Both men included on a supplemental list of "the old Swedes and Finns that are still alive that have come from our fatherland", suggesting they were both Swedish immigrants.

/* Craig lists them with this regional affiliation in his introduction to the 1693 census, yet in Chapter 3 on the Wicaco Congregation, #204 Andreas Derricksson was living in the city of Philadelphia before moving that same year to Somerset County, Maryland.

I have been tracking down the Derickson/Derrickson family of the Old Mill Hundred in New Castle, Delaware. A note on name spelling that may be useful to other Der(r)ickson genealogists: the surname is most likely descended from the Nordic patronym Didricsson, literally son of Didric, before it crystallized as a surname. At least one case on here, however, suggests Derickson was adopted as a variation of Erickson--more research needs done on origin. Some of the earliest recorded variants in North America were rendered "Dirichsson"; the name Dirich is Germanic rather than Nordic in origin making this unlikely but not impossible (the Dirichssons may have had a Germanic father who moved and married a Swedish mother). In the mid-1700s Delaware records you will still often see Didricsson, Dirichsson, or in a memorable case Dirixon, but it often appears along with Derickson for the same person. The one R spelling, following Dirich, stays dominant at least in this region of Delaware in most records through the 1820s-1850s. At that point more variant spellings with the double-R start to emerge. Derickson is probably the safest dominant spelling in colonial Delaware; it's evident that many ancestors of this era were variable in their spelling habits and may have even translated between English and Swedish forms as needed, but Derickson is most common.