Nancy Ann Forshee b. 3 Nov 1766-1770 Connoquenessing, Butler, Pennsylvania d. 2 Feb 1807 , Fairfield, Ohio: Lineagekeeper's Genealogy

(Research):Forshay

The Name Foshee and It's Possible Origins Anne Gometz Foshe
e 1509 East Powell Street Bainbridge, GA 31717 Librarian for Genealogy and Local History Southwest Georgia Regional Library Bainbridge, Georgia The name Foshee is not very common. People bearing it are scattered throughout the USA with a concentration in the Southern states. There seems to have been eighteenth century settlers with this name in several of the seaboard states; Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Foshees were among the earliest settlers of Alabama and early settlers in Tennessee. Some also were in Louisiana and other French settlements.

Common variants of the name include; Fooshee, Foushee, Forshee, Foshe, Fouch, and Fouche. Other possible variants are; Fauche or Faushe, Furches, and Foshay or Forshay. These may look different, but when read aloud; the basic similarity of the sound will become obvious. Our ancestors did not have our obsession with correct spelling and our access to education, thus the same individual will often be found in the records under several spellings. The clerks, census takers, and other officials who made the records often spelled phonetically the sounds they heard. Local accents also changed our names. Forshee to a south Georgian is Fooshee in a softer Virginian drawl. Under these circumstances, genealogists, hunting through records and indexes should look for any phonetic equivalent of the names they want.

The variant Foshee spellings above are known as 'Anglicized' forms,words from another language which have been changed to an English pronunciation. Fouche' was originally French, and is most likely root of the various American forms. This name is pronounced with two syllables, like foo-shay. If you took high school French, you remember how difficultit was to make a French word sound French and not English.Our ancestors were not in this country long before the spelling and sound of their names would be changed by neighbors and their English -speaking children.

Elsdon Smith [1] states that Foucher, Fouche, and Fouch are French names with two possible meanings; 1) descendant of Folchari (people,army); 2) one who mows or reaps crops. The second meaning is an 'occupation' name. Since there were many reapers in a medieval farming society, we would not be surprised if Fouche' is a common name in France. Another author gives the same meaning, but derives it from 'faucher' which he says means haymaker or one who works with a scythe [2].

Meaning number one has a more complicated set of beginnings. Folchari is one of the many forms of a word meaning 'people'. Fulco was a personal name (first or christian) in old German and Fulco or Fouques in old French. There are many surnames, which stem from this one baptismal name in French, German, and English. English forms include Fulk and Fowlkes. One form of the name, Foucher or Fouquier is Old French, meaning literally 'people - army' and has at least nineteen modern forms including Fulcher and Fucher. [3] A scholarly French work on surnames states, also, that Foucher may be an old or original form of Fouchard.Fouche' is listed as a short form of Fouchereau. [4] Again all these come from the same ancient personal name. Another variation of the name has been reported as, end of harvest, gone, and slang expression 'broke'.

There may still be other French names with a sufficiently close sound to Fouche' to be anglicized in the same fashion. It is, therefore, entirely possible that not all Foshees in the USA are descendants of one immigrantor one family in France. A number of immigrants with similar sounding names may have landed at widely spaced ports. And, as we have seen, names which stem from Fouche' or sound like it are not uncommon in France itself. French names also occur in Switzerland, so here is another possible source of immigration to the USA.

As all the above reveals, the study of surnames, though fascinating, is a complicated and scholarly field. There is no easy answer to the question 'What does your name mean?' but, there are certainly plenty of intriguing possibilities.

[1] Smith, Elsdon C., New Dictionary of American Names, NY, Harper and Row, 1973, page 162

[2] Long, Harry Alfred, Personal and Family Names, originally published 1883, reprinted by Gale Research Co, 1968, page 234

[3] Reaney, P H, The Origin of English Surnames, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958, pp 139-140

[4] Dauzat, Alfred, Dictionaire etymologique des noms defamillie et prenoms de France, Paris, Librairie Larousse, 1949, 1951, p 263

Nancy Ann Forshee[1]

Nancy Ann Forshee^[1]