Origin of the Name Richmond
The
Richmond family history was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. Richmond is a locality name meaning 'of Richmond' from a parish in County Yorkshire. This name is of English descent and is found in many ancient manuscripts in that country. Examples of such are an Agnes Richemond who was recorded in the 'Poll Tax' of the West Riding of Yorkshire in the year 1379. A John Richmond was baptised at the church of St. James, Clerkenwell, in the year 1624. A Geoffrey Richemond was made a 'Freeman of York' during the reign of Edward I. Names were recorded in these ancient documents to make it easier for their overlords to collect taxes and to keep a record of the population at any given time. When the overlords acquired lands by either force or as gifts from their rulers, they created charters of ownership for themselves and their vassals.
In Ireland this name and its variants were introduced into Ulster Province by settlers who arrived from England and Scotland , especially during the seventeenth century. It was the 'Plantations of Ireland ' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that marked the end of Gaelic supremacy in Ireland . While the influx of settlers in the wake of the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century resulted in a full integration into Irish society of the new arrivals, the same never occurred with the Ulster Planters who maintained their own distinct identity.
The Richmond coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Richmond descendants.