Re: Bergan Family tree
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In reply to:
Bergan Family tree
8/02/01
Peter,
I just discovered this forum and your message. I was intrigued by your Yorkshire connection because in researching my own Bergan history I found that one of my great-grandfather's brothers, William Bergin (b. abt. 1835), served in the Royal Artillery for 17 years and lived afterwards in Halifax, Yorkshire. Most of the rest of the family seems to have wound up in the United States. By the way, various siblings in that generation spelled the family name differently, some "in", some "en", and some "an."
The following is from a short piece that I did for my children a few years ago. I think it's more or less accurate. I hope it's helpful.
"Our family name is an anglicization of Ó hAimheirgin or Ó hAimhirgin. A better anglicization would probably be O’Mergin or, even more correctly, O’Vergin, but the “B” form was established in English at least as early as the fourteenth century. The most common spelling of the name in English is probably “Bergin”, although both “Bergen” and, rarely, “Bergan” are also used. “Berrigan” is also occasionally seen. (“Bergan” at least has the advantage of assuring a hard “g”.)
The name is not among the most common Irish names, originating mostly in and around the Barrow-Nore River system, although there is such a concentration of Bergins in the area where Counties Laois, Tipperary and Offaly come together (near Roscrea) that it is said that, “if you throw a rock, you’ll hit a Bergin.” A secondary concentration appears in the Dublin area, perhaps as a result of natural migration to the capital. A minor figure in James Joyce’s Ulysses is “Little Alf” Bergan, a Dublin under-sheriff, who was in real life a friend of the Joyce family."
Phil Bergan