Origins of the name - Layzell

I have encountered many theories such as my own handed down family story that the origins were Flemish weavers fleeing from the Liege in Belgium at a time of persecution and settling in Suffolk which at the time was the centre of the British wool trade.

There is no clear agreement of the origins of the name Layzell and I think it unlikely that we will ever be certain but the two most likely theories are :-

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland gives the origin as people from the little Suffolk village of Lawshall. In medieval times this had many spellings including Lausell which in the rural Suffolk tongue that stretches vowels, could we be pronounced Layzell, It certainly would be in the right place geographically as in 1841 the vast majority of Layzells were withing a few miles of Lawshall on the Suffolk,/Essex border.

The second main theory is that the name is derived from a village in Normandy called La Celle and was brought across during the Norman invasion and subsequent settlements in 1066. Certainly the name Lascelles appears in documents as long ago as the 12th century and continues to appear occasionally in documents though the ages and it is easy to see how Lascelles could become Layzell and the other derivative versions of the name.

The geographical spread page on this site gives details of the spread of the name taken from the census of 1841 to the national survey in 1939 to help understand the way that our ancesters moved around.