There are a number of variants to the Carbis surname, which have been registered with the Guild of One Names Studies [GOONS], which requires that all aspects of a registered surname in whatever form, should be studied.

To this end, there is now a series of comprehensive databases covering births, christenings, marriages and deaths, which have been extracted from a continuously increasing number of sources of records and other related indexes. In addition, from information that has been supplied in one form or another, from a number of persons who have an interest in this particular surname. These databases are and will continue to be added to as and when the relevant information becomes available.

Please feel free to come back to the Owner, especially if you are a newcomer to this family surname and one with whom there has not been any previous contact. If you have or hear of any information, or have any questions to which there may be some answers.

Having come this far. Would you please take the time to have a look through the following pages, which will provide something of the history and the origins of the CARBIS surname as it understood at this time.

2.2 HISTORY
The story of the Carbis names, so far as the records are concerned, starts around 1303 in Looe, Cornwall. Then progresses to the middle of the fourteenth century with Richard and Johan Carbines [Carbis] family of St.Minver, Cornwall. Then on to an early Will of a certain Benedict Carbis of the parish of Phillack, Cornwall dated 22nd July 1601.

From a study of the various locations of the various early Will, it may be seen that the Carbis peoples in the sixteen hundreds, appear to have been settled in three main areas of Cornwall. In Helston, Phillack and Mevagissey. Only in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, did the family name spread into the St.Just. St.Ives and into the Redruth areas, with tin and/or copper miners being the primary occupation of those families that migrated around Cornwall.

The story continues onwards until today. However, it would be very pleasant to think that this surname may in fact be far older than most current thinking would allow ………… Today there are some one hundred and fifty [this number changes upwards from one month to another] Carbis families and others Carbis families that are connected via their maternal side scattered around the world. In Cornwall of course, Devon, Dorset, the Isle of Wight, Wales, Scotland, Switzerland, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the United States of America. Only recently has there come to light at least one Carbis family living in Canada, and so it goes on.

We are all [mostly] looking for that very elusive link that takes us further back from 1st July 1837 dateline, when the government in England and Wales first introduced legislation that required the registration of all births, marriages and deaths. To be able to join one Carbis family to another Carbis family, in turn finding somewhere a more common ancestor. In finding more common ancestors, this in turn reduces the apparent numbers of possible separate and individual families.

This, in a sense, only happen when Carbis people get together we are all together from time to time, to talk and to show what has been achieved so far. To hopefully in the process of talking with others of a like mind, begin to find some other common links.

Please pay a visit to the Guest Book and also leave your name and address there and on the Enquiries page. Please leave a note of any of your comments and other family information, that you feel will be of assistance to us all. We Carbis people are all very important to each other in this family name quest.

‘Thank you again for taking the time to pay a visit to the Carbis Society web site’.

2.3 ORIGINS
A short history lesson for those not yet aware of the origins of the Carbis surname.

Carbis in the original Cornish may have been ‘Car-Pons’ which is thought to have meant a ‘Cart-Bridge’. From the Handbook of Cornish Surnames by G. Pawley White.

Carbis from it’s far older Cornish name of ‘Car-Bons’ may also generally be understood to mean ‘Camp on a bridge’ or a ‘Paved causeway’. These may well have been borrowed from the Latin during the Roman occupation of about 55BC – 410AD.

As a Breton place name, the word may be applied to ‘Places far from streams’, so that the Middle Breton equivalent [about 1465 AD] of this word is ‘street’. All very confusing, but there is more.

Dexter’s Cornish and Welsh Elements of Local Surnames gives ‘Car- as a ‘Camp’. Additionally ‘Kar-, Ker-‘ as in Carbis, meaning a ‘Rock’; is given by C. L. Estrange Owen in the 1931 edition of his History of Surnames of the British Isles.

As early as the 14th century, usually showed the second syllable in the form ‘bous or bows’ with further changes to ‘bis’ from the 16th century, it is this last change that has remained with this particular family’s surname spelling.

In Scotland there is today the small town of Culrain, Sutherland which was previously known as ‘Carbisdale’ the origin of which is described as Norse, coming as it does from ‘Kjaarbolsta’ meaning ‘copse-stead’, with the suffix ‘dalr’ meaning ‘dale’. Similarly, in the Gaelic, ‘Caerr’ pronounced ‘Car’, means ‘brushwood or fearny wood’ and ‘Bost’ meaning ‘settlement, or steading’.

Culrain – of the old ‘Carbisdale or Carbustell’ of 1548 AD, the modern name is said to have been imposed from Coleraine in Ireland.

The area of Carbisdale, in spite of its small size, was probably noted on the early maps owing to its position at the major junction of a number of tracks which would have been used by cattle drovers of that period. An important battle was fought nearby which was to end in the defeat of Montrose and his men on 27th April 1650 at Craigchoynechan, besides Carbesdell. Montrose a popular hero was eventually captured and subsequently beheaded. [Reference; The Statistical Account of Scotland 1987].

It is suggested that this place is not marked on later maps simply through the lack of space, as other names were added. There appears to have been no definite decision to remove or change the name. Today, the castle that is built on the site of the old Culrain Lodge in 1910 was named Carbisdale Castle, which implies that the name has continued to be used locally for a considerable number of years. And as may be fitting, it is still in use today, as a Youth Hostel.

2.3.4 PHOENICIANS
Some years ago whilst working in the Sultanate of Oman, it was necessary from time to time to visit the local Gulf airline offices in Muscat, to arrange for a return air flight
to the United Kingdom. It was on one of these visits that having first pronounced my surname, I proceeded to spell out CARBIS, at which point the young lady on the other side of the counter, said something to the effect that
‘ It was not necessary, as this old family name, was also in use by the Lebanese’

When one starts to consider a little more the possible course of events of the early Bronze Age and the requirements for access to high-grade tin and copper, there is a possible connection. It should also be borne in mind that in this period the Phoenicians, who were renowned travellers and merchant traders, had founded Carthage on the north coast of Africa. Thus, it may be assumed that in those early days, some adventurous merchant traders sailed out from the Mediterranean, following no doubt a route, which may have been taken by the Greek explorer Py6theus in about 300BC, who first discovered the ‘Tin Islands’.

Following the west coast of Hispania [Spain and Portugal] and then Gaul [France] having stopped off at Venti in Armorica [situated on the south coast of the Brittany peninsular] or Vannes, as it is known today, before venturing the crossing of the west end of the English Channel. Rounding Lands End between the Scilly Islands and then reaching further still around the north coast of Domnonia [Cornwall] to make a final landing in the general area of what is today St.Ives, Carbis Bay and Hayle, known as the Red River, due to the discolouration from the residual washings from tin ores. Then one, who having decided to settle, went on in some small way to assist in developing the trade in tin from Cornwall on to the Continent

It is of course a very charming story, however, there are some today who will wish to disagree with that statement. Nevertheless, it is pointed out that in general, this period of history, has been distorted by so many different writers in the past, that it has become more than a little difficult to determine the exact truth of past events, especially those so far back in the Cornish history.