Floyd Name Study

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If you wish to contribute, please feel free to add your name (Wiki Link) to the Membership list, add links to any relevant free space pages you're working on or simply leave a message for other researchers at the foot of the page.

Volunteer to be a Coordinator

About the Project

The Floyd Name Study project serves as a collaborative platform to collect information on the Floyd name. The hope is that other researchers like you will join the study to help make it a valuable reference point for other genealogists who are researching or have an interest in the Floyd name. The Floyd Name Study is creating a team structure for those interested in specific areas of Floyd research.

As a One Name Study, this project is not limited to persons who are related biologically. Individual studies can be used to branch out the research into specific methods and areas of interest, such as geographically (England Floyds), by time period (18th Century Floyds), or by topic (Floyd DNA, Floyd Occupations, Floyd Statistics). These studies may also include a number of family branches which have no immediate link with each other. Some researchers may even be motivated to go beyond the profile identification and research stage to compile fully sourced, single-family histories of some of the families they discover through this name study project.

Membership Requirements

Requirements for joining:

• Have Family Member level membership and sign the Honor Code
• Declare what you would like to work on within the project. Check out the list of Floyd Study Teams] to see if there is a specific study ongoing that fits your interests. If a team does not yet exist for your particular area of interest, please contact the Name Study Coordinator:

Project Statistics

• Total project profiles through 29 March 2023: 428

Research Pages

Here are some of the current research pages included in the study. I'll be working on them, and could use your help!

• Floyd Families in America

Project Member Task List

1. Origins of Floyd Surname

2. Identification of First Arrivals/Births in the American Colonies

3. Sourcing of Floyd Profiles

4. Identification and Merging of Duplicate Profiles

5. Adoption of Orphaned Profiles after Sourcing

Related Surnames and Surname Variants

Although Ron mentioned Floyds as Quakers, my own Floyd family came from South Carolina to Loa, Utah in 1903, and all of those Floyd are Mormons, and there records are recorded in the Morman Genealogy Collection in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the Floyd family mentioned they came from Holland to New York.

A wonderful book, not published yet, was written by Chuck Floyd "called Early Floyd Family History in Virginia and the Carolinas 1600-1860, Surnames, Floyd, Flloyd, Flyd, Ffloyd, Floyde, Floid, Flood, Flowyd, Fowde, Flud, Fludd, Fluud, Fluudi ...Lhuyd, Lloyd, Wnyd, Llwyd, various spelling of the Floyd Surname.

Another book called "Pretty Boy Floyd", written by Michael Wallis, the Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd, which has a lot of first hand genealogy information given by family members in this book, they were from Horry County, Floyd County, South Carolina.

Any further research information, books, or research is welcome on this page, if you would like to post any comments, and again I especially thank Ron Floyd for his input.

Peter Floyd Esche - Esche-7 has now joined the Floyd Name Study group.

Origin of the Floyd Surname

submitted by: Ron Floyd [Floyd-1923]

The surname Floyd is an anglicized form of the Celtic Welsh name Lloyd. This name is of nickname origin, belonging to that category of names which were applied to their original bearers as nicknames. In this case, the name comes from the Welsh “llwyd” meaning “grey” and was probably given to someone because of gray hair or a pale complexion. Welsh migrants to England and Scotland in the early Middle Ages took the name with them, but the Welsh “ll” sound proved difficult to pronounce so was gradually changed. The name appears regularly in early English sources. The first instance occurs in 1509, in the Lincolnshire Pipe Rolls, where the name of Richard Floyd is mentioned. In 1532 the same rolls contain a reference to John Floyd. The name next appears in the Surrey Muster lists in 1544. Where Griffin Floyde is registered. In London in 1560, the name of William Floyd, alias Flowde, is entered in the Patent Rolls. The first appearance of the name in America is in a muster of “the living in Virginia” taken on February 16, 1623, where Thomas Floyd was recorded. A further muster, in 1624, recorded the name of Nathaniel Floid, who sailed to America in the “Bona Nova”. The spelling of his name is changed in further documentation to the most common current version, Floyd. There are many gaps in the facts as to the early Floyd migrations to America. Two prevalent schools of thought are that the initial Floyds, Welsh/Scots/English immigrants, all came from ports in Great Britain: 1. Sailed into Virginia on ships they either owned or owed their passage; then either sailed on up the coast to Long Island, New York (Richard Floyd I, arr. 1656) or down the coast to Charlestown, South Carolina (Richard F. Floyd, Sr, arr. 1654-63); or 2. Sailed directly into all three ports from Great Britain. Probably both cases have merit; but either way, they settled on the coast and from there they eventually began moving west. It appears, my direct line ancestors entered through Charlestown, migrated through South Carolina into North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. Some branches left the Carolinas moving through Georgia and Alabama while others went through to Virginia and Kentucky.

Research notes: between Ron Floyd [Floyd-1923] and Jennifer (Floyd) Zucconi [Floyd-1558]

Analysis concludes that my DNA is more akin to the Scottish line(50%) instead of directly from the Welsh/English(38%) and Irish(12%) that I had been chasing. This also supports the basis for my American kin and their arrival through South Carolina. I am currently hard at work to get this linked. But as fate would have it, the Scottish side is the least documented for this pre 1600 era. There's a Richard, son of Edward, son of William, who fits the timeline with our Richard Floyd Sr. And they're actually Floyds, not Floids, Lloyds or Loyds, etc. The Flaids were from Denbigh on eastward, even over to Angelsey. That's interesting because the Welsh cleared Angelsey of "the Scots." They called both Scots and Irish "the Scots." I assume it's because of the linguistic similarity between them (the Welsh being P-Celtic and Scottish/Irish Gaelic being Q-Celtic, i.e. ap and maq) and basically because they are pretty much the same. There was a lot of intermarriage between the Welsh and the other Celts, particularly in that northern and western part of Wales, so it wouldn't be at all surprising to have both Scot and a touch of Welsh in your lineage. I came upon a Rhirid Flaid. His grandfather's name meant "Bloody Wolf" or "Red Wolf" in polite company. Flaid means wolf. I had seen a passenger list for the colonies that had a Flaid on it so I'm curious if the Flaid name might actually be more akin to Floyd than Lloyd or Llwyd. I wish there could be a DNA study that would separate the lines for us. Otherwise it might be impossible to get any further back than our eastern shore.

Research notes: Jennifer (Floyd) Zucconi [Floyd-1558]

I poured over the genealogy collection at Aberystwyth University. The university link is http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/search/?q=Welsh+genealogy&s=all Dictionary of Welsh Biography: http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-RHIR-FLA-1160.html?query=Rhirid+Flaidd&field=name One pedigree for him: http://www.fabpedigree.com/s080/f040789.htm On another topic http://www.genealogy.com/ftm/w/i/l/James-K-Willis-TX/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0015.html That’s a post about Floyd Quakers. It starts out with a Mary Floyd, then goes into lots of families. The last sentence says Floyd is a proven Quaker family. I’ve seen lots of Floyd connections with Quakers and I’ve studied the Pennsylvania Lloyds. But I’ve never found anything that definitely puts the NC/SC/TN Floyds in the Quaker column themselves, other than marrying Quakers who left the church.