Home Page

This site covers the family history of the Burgar and related families in England

and the Burgar/Burgess families in Shetland

DNA tests show that the English Burgar are related to the Shetland Burgar family, but the branches separated about 300 years ago.

The search for my ancestors began one Sunday, in 1979, when my youngest daughter found another Burgar in the telephone directory. I phoned Terry Burgar and was surprised to hear that he had been born in Sheffield, whereas I had thought that all the Burgar, like myself, came from London.

The next day Alice and my children went to the local library, and searched through all the telephone directories for the UK. They found Burgar in London and Sheffield, about a dozen in all, plus a few in the Orkneys. That evening I phoned the first person in Sheffield, Horace Burgar.

“I’m Bill Burgar and I’m trying to trace the family tree, and wonder if you can help me?”

What follows here is a summary of the outcome of such phone calls and visits to persons with the Burgar surname around the country. The information on the older generations is a result of visits to numerous Record Offices, churches, and churchyards

This site records all of our findings and reference sources. It is hoped that future generations will be able to add to these results without needing to repeat the many hours of work that we have done.

We hope that you will enjoy the history of our ancestors, a family that had numerous ups and downs (mainly the latter), and was probably typical of many families during the last three Centuries.

When this information was first published in 2005, it was only concerned with the Burgar family. I tried to treat all Burgar persons equally, and entered up all the details that had been sent to me by various informants. However, over the last few years I have found a lot of information on other branches of my own ancestors. Thus the site has now changed to a more ego-centric format, where I am presenting the data for the benefit of my children and grandchildren.

Any comments and suggestions for improvements would be welcome. No offence will be taken however frank the comments. All help in the form of extra information, photos etc will be gratefully accepted.

The website has undergone a major update (April 2011). If you have problems, would you please let me know at billburgar@aol.com