Cardinal Family History
- Cardinal Name Meaning
- English, French, Spanish, and Dutch: from Middle English, Old French cardinal ‘cardinal’, the church dignitary (Latin cardinalis, originally an adjective meaning ‘crucial’). The surname may have denoted a servant who worked in a cardinal’s household, but was probably more often bestowed as a nickname on someone who habitually dressed in red or who had played the part of a cardinal in a pageant, or on one who acted in a lordly and patronizing manner, like a prince of the Church.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press
- 246,591 Historical Documents with Cardinal on Ancestry
- 76,452 Birth, Marriage, and Deaths
- 50,753 Census and Voter Lists
- 9,945 Military Records
- 2,713 Immigration Records
- 106,728 Member Trees
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Number of Cardinal families
 14 - 25  5 - 13 |
 1 - 4  |
from the 1891 England and Wales Census Data
| Sorry, we couldn't find geographic distribution information for the Cardinal last name |
from the 1891 Scotland Census Data
Cardinal census records
You can see how Cardinal families moved over time by selecting different Census years.
Census records can tell you little-known facts about your ancestors such as birthplace, occupation and value of personal estate.
from the New York Passengers List
Click on a place to view Cardinal immigration records
The information for this chart came from the U.S. Immigration Collection at Ancestry. You can find out where the majority of the Cardinal families were living before they immigrated to the U.S and learn where to focus your search for foreign records.
Immigration records can tell you an ancestor's name, ship name, port of departure, port of arrival, and destination.
from the New York Passenger Lists
Click on a circle in the chart to view Cardinal emigration records
You can find out when most of the Cardinal families immigrated to the United States. You can focus your search to emigration records dating from that era.
Emigration records can tell you an ancestor's name, ship name, port of departure, port of arrival and destination.
from 1881 UK Census Data
Cardinal census records
Census records can offer a lot of little known facts about your Cardinal ancestors, such as occupation.
Occupation can tell you about your ancestors' social status and economic status.
Did the Cardinals fight in a war? Military records can tell you a lot
about your ancestors including birthplace, occupation and even physical descriptions.
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