Surname Saturday: Avery

Samuel Avery was a carpenter back in the early 1800s.  His son married into a family connected to the sea, and soon the AVERYs were known for building and designing boats and ships.  Later, the AVERY name is found in its highest concentrations in Canada and New Zealand (interesting to note that it is found mostly in the New Plymouth district of NZ - all my AVERYs came from Plymouth and the surrounding area.

Kingsand, Cornwall

'My' AVERYs lived in the villages of Cawsand, Kingsand, and Rame, in Cornwall, England.  When my great grandmother Emma Maud AVERY married into the Haywood family, although they stayed in the same place, one of her sons (my grandfather) became a shipwright.

The surname itself is Gaelic.  Cornwall (where my AVERYs came from) is well-known for its connections with Ireland, and some of my ancestors on my mother's side were either Irish themselves, or served in Ireland as coastguards.