Charters was a name adopted in France in 1525, some from Chartres, some from Chartiers, at the Isle St. Luys, Paris. It was a political sympathy name for the Chartist movement, probably from the hermetic
clan who sought religious and intellectual freedom, voting suffrage and an overthrow of the Hapsburgs and the royal lineages that dominated Europe. The inheritors of the Viking system wouldn't have it. After the St. Bartholomew's massacre they left with the Huegenot to Ireland and Scotland. A woman of that name married the Laird of county Fyfe, MacDuff and the children took the matronymic. The ancestral castle still stands. Parts of the family settled in Northern England, parts in Western Ireland (the danes), parts in Northen Ireland, parts came from Wales. Later they settled in Virginia, and Southern Ontario. Of the names, Cook, Harcourt, Whitham, White, Appleby and Charters, three are French originally. |
