Horman

Origin of Surname

We had previously failed to find any information on the origins of this name, but have now succeeded. Despite suggestions that this is a Jewish name, it seems that it was present in France before the Norman Conquest as Herman, and may have changed to Horman when some family members crossed to England.

It is derived from the old French hermant, meaning a warrior.

G F B de Gruchy writes of Horman: "A Jersey surname ^[1]in a document of 1214, Hurman. See Hacquoil [the first syllable of which was Hör; the last being olfr, making Hörd-wolf]. Probably from the Old Norse name Hördar, a tribe in Western Norway, and so meaning the Hord-man."

Early records

Horman was first recorded in Jersey in about 1180. It is not known whether the original Hormans came to Jersey from Normandy or England, but it may well have been neither. The Norse invasion and conquest in the 9th century of North-West France and its offshore islands, led to permanent settlement and the creation of a new and powerful nation-state, Normandy. The Channel Islands, being isolated, and useful as bases from which to launch future attacks, were colonised at a very early stage. With the invaders, came their place-names, culture and personal-names, which would later become surnames, such as Hörman.

The Jersey Chantry Certificate of 1550 contains Jaques, Sire Jehan, Johan, Drouet, Nicholas and Piers Horman or Hormen.

Philippe Horman was born in St Saviour, Jersey about 1485 (see tree below), and baptisms first appeared in the St Saviour register in 1540.

The Fief ès Hormans

De Gruchy writes in Medieval Land Tenures in Jersey "the Fief...in St Peter measured one carucate or 60 acres. I do not know of direct proof that the Horman family held it before 1204, but the names make this highly probable. Roger Horman attested a charter in c1180 among others of the chief men of Jersey, and Robert Horman was one of the Island hostages liberated in 1214; it seems probable that the former held the fief and that the latter was his son.

Thomas Horman served on an inquest in 1254 among other chief men and may have held the fief. Philippe Horman was a Jurat in the first quarter of the XIV century, and he had a son Jourdain who almost certainly was the Jourdain Horman who did suit for the fief in 1323. In 1331 Roger Horman held the fief. In 1392-1401 another Jourdain Horman was a Jurat, but it would seem that the main branch must have ended in the male line shortly after. In the XV and in the XVI centuries the fief was held by a family named Fondan."

Variants

• Horman, c1180
• Hormen 1461-78
• Hourman 1392
• dictus Horman, 1306
• Herman 1299
• Hurman 1274
• Hormant 1264

Family records

Family trees

• Descendants of Philippe Horman (1485)
• Descendants of Amice Horman
• Descendants of Michel Horman Added 2016

Church records

Tips for using these links

• Horman baptisms in Jersey
• Horman marriages in Jersey (groom)
• Horman marriages in Jersey (bride)
• Horman burials in Jersey

Family histories

• Annie Horman

Newspaper records

• J Horman 1848 land valuer
• George Horman appointed to reservoir planning committee in 1848
  
  

Great War service

• Horman family members who served in World War 1

Family wills

These wills created by members of the Horman family are now held by Jersey Archive. By visiting the archive site and using the names, dates and reference numbers shown here, it is possible to view a copy of each will. You will have to subscribe to the Archive's online service to do this. To find out more about this collection, which covers the period from 1663 to 1980, and how to search for your family's wills there, visit our Jersey wills page

• Abraham Horman 30 October 1752 - D/Y/A/8
• Ann Horman, St Helier, widow of John Edmund Nugent 26 September 1905 6 April 1906- 22 August 1907, D/Y/A/66
• Daniel Horman of St Helier, bequeaths to the poor of St Helier, £1 sterling: half for the poor at the General Hospital and half for the poor 11 April 1795 - D/Y/A/15
• Eleonora Horman of Grouville - 17 February 1896, D/Y/A/55
• Elizabeth Horman née Nicholson, 95 Campbell Terrace, St Helier - 6 March 1909, D/Y/A/68
• Elizabeth Horman of Grouville, now of St Saviour, bequeaths to the poor of the Wesleyan Chapel of Grove Place £4 - 3 January 1891, D/Y/A/50
• Elizabeth Horman, Colomberie, St Helier - 6 August 1912, D/Y/A/71
• Esther Horman, Grouville, now of St Helier Dated 5 December 1878, bequeaths to the poor of the parish in which she dies 5s - 3 April 1895, D/Y/A/54
• George Horman 28 April 1748 - D/Y/A/8
• George Horman, Advocat and General of the Queen, bequeaths to the poor of St Helier £10 - 3 June 1879, D/Y/A/40
• James Horman, Mariner 6 February 1762 - D/Y/A/10
• John Horman, Roslyn, St St Helier, bequeaths to Edgar James Horman Roslyn - 6 October 1936, D/Y/A/99
• Maria Horman of Jersey, now of Barrio de La Cruz, Salcidos - 15 May 1890, D/Y/A/49
• Maria Horman, wife of Tom Josué Martin of St Brelade - 11 October 1884, D/Y/A/44
• Marie Horman, widow of Abraham Rommeril 5 May 1733 - D/Y/A/6
• Nicolas Horman 25 June 1765 - D/Y/A/11
• Philippe Horman, St Helier - 29 October 1904, D/Y/A/63
• Phillippe Horman, son of Phillippe 18 February 1720 - D/Y/A/5
• Rachel Horman of Grouville, bequeaths to the Home for Aged and Infirm Women £2 - 4 January 1900, D/Y/A/59

Family photograph album

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  Charles Horman (1825-1880)

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  Annie Horman (1866-1953), born St Helier, died Salt Lake City

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  Annie Horman and her husband Edward Green

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  The Green family with Annie

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  Annie Horman

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  Annie Horman and Edward

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  Annie Horman with her husband and sons

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  Francis Horman (1855-1940), son of Charles Horman

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  Francis Alfred Horman (1911- ) and his twin sisters May Louise and Louisa May (1912- )

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  Robin Horman and his fiancee, later his wife, Sheila, nee Bouchard

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  Robin Horman, an accomplished cyclist in the 1950s

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  Lydia Horman

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  Sidney Horman

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  Francis De La Haye Horman (1855-1940)

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  Francis De La Haye Horman

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  Edmund De La Haye Horman (1860-1945) and Martha Spiers, nee Smith, in Utah

Family gravestones

Click on any image to see a larger version. See the Jerripedia gravestone image collection page for more information about our gravestone photographs

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  St Mary’s Church cemetery

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  St Mary’s Church cemetery

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  St Mary’s Church cemetery

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  St Peter’s Church cemetery

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  Old Mont a l’Abbe cemetery

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  Mont a l’Abbe cemetery

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  Mont a l’Abbe cemetery

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  Mont a l’Abbe cemetery

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  St John’s Church cemetery

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  Philadelphie cemetery

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  St Brelade Church cemetery

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  St Brelade Church cemetery

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  St Brelade Church cemetery

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  St Lawrence

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  The gravestone of Charles Horman (1825-1880) in a US cemetery

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  Annie de la Haye Horman's tombstone in Salt Lake City

Tips

The church record links above will open in a new tab in your browser and generate the most up-to-date list of each set of records from our database. These lists replace earlier Family page baptism lists, which were not regularly updated. They have the added advantage that they produce a chronological listing for the family name in all parishes, so you do not have to search through A-Z indexes, parish by parish.

We have included some important spelling variants on some family pages, but it may be worth searching for records for a different spelling variant. Think of searching for variants with or without a prefix, such as Le or De. To search for further variants, or for any other family name, just click on the appropriate link below for the first letter of the family name, and a new tab will open, giving you the option to choose baptism, marriage or burial records. You will then see a list of available names for that type of record and you can select any name from that list. That will display all records of the chosen type for that family name, and you can narrow the search by adding a given name, selecting a parish or setting start and end dates in the form you will see above. You can also change the family name, or search for a partial name if you are not certain of the spelling

The records are displayed 30 to a page, but by selecting the yellow Wiki Table option at the top left of the page you can open a full, scrollable list. This list will either be displayed in a new tab or a pop-up window. You may have to edit the settings of your browser to allow pop-up windows for www.jerripediabmd.net. For the small number of family names for which a search generates more than 1,500 records you will have to refine your search (perhaps using start or end dates) to reduce the number of records found.

New records

Since August 2020 we have added several thousand new records from the registers of Roman Catholic, Methodist and other non-conformist churches. These will appear in date order within a general search of the records and are also individually searchable within the database search form

A--B--C--D--E--F--G--H--I--J--K--L--M--N--O--P--Q--R--S--T--U--V--W--X--Y--Z

Notes and references

1. ↑ : It is not clear whether he meant that the name originated in Jersey, or was simply common in Jersey. The former seems unlikely, given the prevalence of the family name in northern France. It has certainly been common in Jersey, with 582 baptisms on record between 1540 and 2010. But with over 22,000 Hormans on record throughout the world in Geneanet, it seems highly unlikely that they all descend from an original Jersey family