This rare name is almost certainly Huguenot and first in England in the early years of the 17th Century as Des Bouveries or DesBouurie. There is a faint possibility that "Disbrey" could be a variant of "Desborough", which is also found as "Desbrow", but this seems unlikely. The meaning of the French surname is "The Cattlemen", the Bouvrerie family being particularly famous in America (Jaqueline Kennedy - nee Bouvrerie). The name development in England would seem to be from Jean Bedbouverie (1624), to John Des Bouree (1701) to Anna DisBovery (1724) to James Disbery (1823) and to Mary Disbrey who married John Dunston at St. Giles Cripplegate, London in 1825. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Samuel De Bouvries, which was dated 1600, The Threadneedle Street Huguenot Church, London, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Good Qeen Bess, 1558 - 1603. 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.

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