Is Burke a Irish last name? If not do you know what it is?

I'm trying to trace back my family history.

Is Burke a Irish last name? If not do you know what it is?
The surname Burke originally derives from the Norman "De Burgo" (so does "De Burgh" by the way). Some of the De Burghs came to Ireland with the Norman invasion so there are British and Irish branches of Burkes. In Ireland their surname was gaelicised as "de B煤rca".
Reply:burke





Irish (of Anglo-Norman origin): habitational name from Burgh in Suffolk, England. This is named with Old English burh 鈥榝ortification鈥? 鈥榝ortified manor鈥?





Norwegian: Americanized form of B酶rke, a habitational name from any of eight farms in southeastern Norway, named with Old Norse birki 鈥榖irch wood鈥?





German: variant of Burk.





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


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Every time I answer a "Surname Origin?" question, I think of the joke:





Man sees a sign, "Olaf Olafson's Chinese Restaurant". He goes in, orders a plate of chow mein, asks the Chinese gentleman behind the counter who is Olaf. Chinese gentleman says, "That's me! There I was at Ellis Island. The man in front of me was a Swede, six foot four, broad shoulders, red beard. They ask him 'Name?' he says 'Olaf Olafson', in a voice that makes the pens rattle in their holders. Off he goes to seek his fortune. They ask me 'Name?', I say 'Sam Ting', and here I am."





Seriously, you should have 16 surnames among your great great grandparents, unless you double up on Smith, Johnson, Miller or Jones or someone married a cousin.





If you are in the USA and trace your family tree, you might find a downtrodden immigrant who came through Ellis Island yearning to be free, a bootlegger, a flapper, a great uncle who died in the muddy trenches of France in 1917. You may find someone who marched off to fight in the Civil War (Maybe two, one wearing blue, one wearing grey). You may find a German who became Pennsylvania "Dutch", a Huguenot, an Irish Potato Famine immigrant. You might find someone who married at 18 and supported his family with musket, plow and axe in the howling wilderness we now call Ohio.





In the UK your chances of finding a homesteader are less, but your chances of finding that great uncle who served in WWI are better.





In Australia you may find someone who got a free ride to a new home, courtesy of the benevolent Government and HM Prison ship "Hope".





Your grandfather with that surname may have married a Scot, a Sioux, a Swede. HIS father, a stolid, dull protestant, may have married an Italian with flashing dark eyes, the first woman on the block to serve red wine in jelly glasses and use garlic in her stew. You'll never know if this is the only question you ask.


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This is a text file I paste to questions like yours. People ask similar questions 3 - 14 times a day here. You get a long, detailed answer, I don't get finger cramps. It is long because there are over 400,000 free genealogy sites.





It is also long because researching your family tree is as hard as writing a term paper in a History class. You don't have to be a rocket scientist, but you won't do it with five clicks. I could tell you everything I know in 30 minutes, but not 3.





If you didn't mention a country, we can't tell if you are in the USA, UK, Canada or Australia. I'm in the USA and my links are for it. If you are not, please edit your question to add a country. Genealogists from the UK answer posts here too. They are more experienced and more intelligent than I am. I'm better looking and my jokes are better.





The really good stuff is in your parents' and grandparents' memories. No web site is going to tell you how your great grandparents decorated the Christmas tree with ornaments cut from tin foil during the depression, how Great Uncle Elmer wooed his wife with a banjo, or how Uncle John paid his way through college in the 1960's by smuggling herbs. Talk to your living relatives before it is too late.





You won't find living people on genealogy sites. Don't look for yourself or your parents.





So much for the warnings. Here are some links. These are large and free. Many of them have subtle ads for Ancestry.com in them - ads that ask for a name, then offer a trial subscription. Watch out for those advertisements.





If you try the links and don't find anyone, go to


http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html


It repeats each link, but it has a whole paragraph of tips and instructions for each one.








http://www.cyndislist.com


Cyndi lists over 250,000 free sites.





http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/f...


The Mormon's mega-site.





http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.c...


RootsWeb World Connect. The links at the top are advertisements. They mislead beginners. Ignore them and scroll down.





http://www.rootsweb.com/


RootsWeb Home. This is the biggest free (genealogy) site in the world.





http://www.ancestry.com


Ancestry has some free data and some you have to pay for.





http://www.usgenweb.net


US Gen Web. Click on a state. Find a link that says "County".





http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/defa...


Surname meanings and origins, one of Ancestry's free pages.





http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-b...


Social Security Death Index. Click on "Advanced". Women are under their married names. They are under their maiden names in most other sites.





http://find.person.superpages.com/


USA Phone book, for looking up distant cousins.





http://vitals.rootsweb.com/ca/death/sear...


California Death Index, 1940 - 1997.





http://www.genforum.com


GenForum has surname, state and county boards.





http://boards.ancestry.com/


Ancestry has surname, state and county boards too. They are free.





Please read


http://www.tedpack.org/goodpost.html


before you post on either one. You may want to read the paragraphs about query boards on


http://www.tedpack.org/yagenlinks.html


before you search them.





http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/lis...


Roots Web Mailing List Archives.





You may want to read


http://www.tedpack.org/maillist.html


if genealogy mailing lists are new to you.





Off the Internet, some public libraries have census image subscriptions. Many Family History Centers do too. FHC's are small rooms in Mormon churches. They welcome anyone interested in genealogy, not just fellow Mormons. They have resources on CD's and volunteers who are friendly. They don't try to convert you; in fact, they don't mention their religion unless you ask a question about it.
Reply:Some Burkes were Irish.


Norman Irish, not Gaelic Irish. The Burkes were among the first Norman families to settle in Ireland. These Normans did not come directly from Normandy, by the way, the Burkes, Butlers, FitzGeralds and similar families were Norman English who were give land and titles in Ireland. Among the Irish they came to be known as the "old English" as opposed to the "new English" who began showing up during the English Tudor dynasty. The old Norman-English-Irish families


were able to integrate themselves into Irish culture and were said by the indigenous Gaelic Irish to be "more Irish than the Irish."





A good place to make Burke contacts is on the genforum listed below in source.





best wishes
Reply:It's Irish.





I think it hails from County Cork
Reply:Yes it is. My friends husband is from Ireland and that is his last name.