This long-established surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from Walburn, a parish in the North Riding of Yorkshire, three and a half miles north of Leyburn. Recorded as "Walebrune" in 12th Century "Documents relating to Yorkshire", and as "Walbrun" in the Feet of Fines, dated 1222, the component elements of the placename are the Olde English pre 7th Century "walh, wealh", Briton, Welsh, and the Olde English "brunna", the original form of "burna", spring, brook, stream; hence, "stream of the Britons or Welsh". The former element also occurs in such placenames as Walcot in Lincolnshire and Worcestershire, and Walden in Essex, and the latter appears in Burnby (Yorkshire) and Bourne (Lincolnshire), recorded respectively as "Brunebi" and "Brune" in the Domesday Book of 1086. Locational surnames, such as this, were originally given to local landowners, and the lord of the manor, and especially as a means of identification to those who left their birthplace to settle elsewhere. In 1327, one John Walebron was noted in the Subsidy Rolls of Sussex, and on October 14th 1571, Jane Walbourne and Henry Maxwell were married at Pickhill with Roxby, Yorkshire. The christening of Jonas Walburn, an infant, took place at Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, on March 26th 1645. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robert Walebrun, which was dated 1296, in the "Subsidy Rolls of Sussex", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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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