Cowzer - Origins

The purpose of this website is three fold :

To provide information to any cowzer or anyone who finds a cowzer in their family tree.
To gather additional information about the cowzer family tree from anyone who finds this site and has information which is not shown here.
And maybe, just maybe, get many of the current generations of John1813 descendants listed here (with surnames redacted for privacy of course).

So, if you have information which is not shown here, or if you can correct any errors (and I know I have made some errors), please, please, contact me - contact details below.

If you find you are in a current generation and have info about parents/grand-parents/siblings/children that I have not listed, then I would love to hear from you.

Conversely,

If you have any concern over information in your family tree which is being shown here, then also contact me and let me know. I will happily take on board your concerns and make adjustments accordingly. Family history can be personal and I do not want to cause offense to anyone.

The origins of the name Cowzer

Cowzer is an evolution of a French Huguenot Name (along with Cowser, Couser, Cowsar). Of this I am pretty sure, although I cannot be 100% certain. There is another possibility, a German Palatine Name. Both the Huguenots and the Palatines were protestant groups suffering religious persecution which led to mass migrations. The Palatines arrived in Ireland in very small numbers and the vast majority left Ireland soon after, and their chief area of settlement was south west Ireland near Limerick. Whereas the Huguenots were settled in Ireland in very large numbers as part of a political campaign to dilute the Irish Catholic population in certain areas. Many of the Hugenots in Ireland were 2nd or 3rd generation having migrated through England/Scotland so their names were already becoming anglecised. Some of the Huguenots were skilled craftsmen, and in particular one craft, lacemaking and weaving, flourished. The chief factors which convince me that the name is Huguenot and not Palatine are :

Scale of Huguenot migration compared with Palatine
Location of Huguenot settlements vs Palatine
Some cowsers/cousers are listed as occupation 'lacemaker' (none directly descended from John1813 - but that does not negate the point)
John1813 worked at Millicent Demesne which was owned that that time by Thomas Cooke-Trench (Trench being a Huguenot name)
When I spoke to Doreen Cowzer (who was in possession of the Cowzer family bible with handwritten notes of family births back to 1836) she said that her branch of the family believd the name was a Huguenot name

It is easy to do further research on these groups on the internet, but here are some links to get you started :