Rose – Surname Saturday

By Don Taylor

Surname Origin

The surname Rose can be of English, Scottish, Irish, French, Danish, and German origin. It could relate to a physical place where wild roses grew, a hereditary sign, or even the nickname for a person with a Rosy complexion.

I am yet to determine an immigrant Rose ancestor, so it is unclear which of the many Rose origins relate to my wife’s Rose ancestors.

Geographical

The United States includes the most people with the Rose surname, with England and Germany distant second and third. In terms of frequency, Jamaica has the highest proportion of the Rose surname globally, with 1 in 338 having the surname.

In the United States, California has the greatest number of people, over 21,000, with the Rose surname. West Virginia has the greatest proportion, with one in 673 people having the Rose surname.

Direct Rose Ancestors

• 3^rd Great-Grandmother: Elizabeth Rose? (1785–186?)
  (See my article Elizabeth (Rose?) Vincent & the Censuses)
  (See my article The Revolutionary Rose Family of Halifax County, North Carolina)
• 4^th Great-Grandfather: William Rose (1759-1801) {NC & GA}
• 5^th Great-Grandfather: William Rose (1733-1785) {NC & NC}

According to Ancestry, in 1840, the greatest number of Roses lived in New York. There were only 91 Rose heads of households in North Carolina in 1840. Elizabeth had married long before then, so she wouldn’t have been counted as a Rose then.

All of our known Rose ancestors were born in North Carolina. Elizabeth and William senior died in North Carolina. William Rose, Jr. appears to have died in Georgia.

Direct William Rose Descendants

William Rose was born in 1733. He married Mary (LNU) on 27 January 1758 in Halifax County, North Carolina. They had at least two children, including 4^th great-grandfather William Rose. William died in 1785 in Halifax County, North Carolina.

Both William Rose, Sr., and his son, William Rose, Jr., were patriots during the Revolutionary War. DAR Ancestor Numbers A206187 and A206765.

I have 176 known descendants of William Rose in my Howell-Darling research.

Surnames include:

• • • Boseman
    • Capel
    • Clement
    • Cuthrell
    • Fizur
    • Hallmark
    • Hockaday
    • Howell
    • Johnson
    • Powell
    • Rose
    • Vincent
    • Welch

I only have three photographs of William Rose’s descendants. All are from his Howell descendants.

Peter Fletcher Howell (1842-1924)

James Dallas Howell (1879-1964)

Clarence Fletcher Howell (1918-1999)

Sources:

• Ancestry Surname Page: Rose.
• Forebears Surnames Page: Rose.
• Genealogy Bank Page: Rose.
• Ancestry – Don Taylor’s Howell-Darling-2020 tree on Ancestry, accessed 5 February 2021.

• DAR Genealogical Research Databases – Descendants List, DAR, DAR – Nat’l #: 986074 – Ancestor #: A206765 – William Rose, Sr., William Rose, Jr.

• DAR Genealogical Research Databases – Descendants List, DAR, DAR – Nat’l #: 874114 – Ancestor #: A206187 – William Rose, Jr.