Updated 14 September 2024 To help find family connections for the BARDs of all spelling and variations. By joining the group you agree to provide the project with 3 things. 1) The surname of the person being tested. 2) The name, date and place of birth of the oldest researched male ancestor of your male patrilineal line and the oldest researched female ancestor of your matrilineal line. 3) Permission to publish the DNA results and the names, dates and places of birth of the oldest known patrilineal or matrilineal ancestor. A Group Study for ALL Variations of BARD & its variants such as BAIRD & BEARD. We hope to attract other males, BAHR, BAHRT, BAIDE, BAIRDE, BAIRT, BAR, BARD, BARDE, BARR, BART, BARTH, BAYARD, BAYRD, BEAIRD, BEAR, BEARD, BEER, BERD, BIARD, BIERD, BIRD (and all other surname variations) as participants in this group project. Taken from the website https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/bard This unusual name is of Anglo-Saxon and Old French origin, and is one of the oldest recorded in England appearing in the Domesday Book of 1086 in its Old French (Norman) form of "Hugo a la Barbe", in Hampshire. As a surname it has grown very naturally from a nickname for a wearer of a beard, derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century "beard", and it often appears in early records in a prepositional form, such as Thomas Onelabarbe ("Thomas with the beard", 1280, Somerset). Between the 12th and 16th Centuries it was usual for men to be clean shaven, so the wearer of a beard was conspicuous during the crucial period for surname formation. The name could also be locational from Beard (village) in Derbyshire. There are variant forms created by dialect. These include Bard(e), first recorded in church registers from the 16th century. Examples of these recordings include John Barde, a witness at the church of St Botolphs without Aldgate, London, on March 16th 1594, and Ann Bard, who married one Matthew Rider at St Peters Church, Pauls Wharf, London, on June 9th 1684 in the reign of Charles 11. A Coat of Arms granted to nameholders has the blazon of a black shield, on a silver chevron, between ten silver martlets, five ogresses, the Crest being a lion's leg. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Alsi Berd, which was dated 1086, in "Inquests of Ely", Cambridgeshire, during the reign of King William 1, known as "The Conqueror", 1066 - 1086. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling. There seems to be only one viable means to overcome the obstacles that name variation presents to ALL of us, and make any pre-immigration genealogical sense out of all of this... And that is DNA research. If you have ANY questions or reservations concerning this DNA Y study, please don't be afraid to e-mail the study administrator. If you have a variation of this surname, or you have probable variants in your old world or ancient genealogy, then you're in the right place! PLEASE join our group study and be tested. I'm sure most of you could relate name variation incidents and problems in your research history. This group DNA Y Project has two main objectives. The first relates to determining relationships between persons and families bearing the name variants in recent times. There are many BAIRD, BARD BEARD, (and other associated surname variations) throughout North America and the world that may have direct connections through a common ancestor. Or, they may have more remote, indirect, or distant connections with each other, partly because surnames became modified over generations as families migrate to new areas, and for various other reasons. The second, broader objective then, is to trace all BARD variants back into Europe and beyond to determine their connections via a common ancestor.