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The forrest Surname

forrest Name Meaning and History

English: topographic name for someone who lived in or near a royal forest, or a metonymic occupational name for a keeper or worker in one. Middle English forest was not, as today, a near-synonym of wood, but referred specifically to a large area of woodland reserved by law for the purposes of hunting by the king and his nobles. The same applied to the European cognates, both Germanic and Romance. The English word is from Old French forest, Late Latin forestis (silva). This is generally taken to be a derivative of foris ‘outside’; the reference was probably to woods lying outside a habitation. On the other hand, Middle High German for(e)st has been held to be a derivative of Old High German foraha ‘fir’ (see Forster), with the addition of a collective suffix.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
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forrest Family Facts

Distribution of forrest Families in the US in 1920
Number of forrest families
 109-215
 37-108		 1-36
 0
Compiled by Ancestry.co.uk from the 1920 US Federal Census records

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Forrest message board


Threads: 497 - Messages: 1293
ThreadAuthorReplies
Eliza susanbuchanan30 0
Eliza susanbuchanan30 0
Friends and relatives roderickforrest 1
world wide -scottish relatives eilean forrest (now burgess) 27
forrest...jamaica dixieforrest48 0
Frank Forrest father of Margaret Forrest Hinsley 31jaybirds 0
Theodore Forrest-Mary Ann Hennessey need answers DZALMES 0
theodore forrest forrest_fam 1
Family History - Forrest, Yon, McBride, Champaign, Jolle, LaForet M Baldwin 6
FORREST Irene C and Winston E t42Moore 0
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