About Ledwith.org

Ledwith.org has been around in one form or another since 2000, back when having your own domain still felt a little exotic. It has been rebuilt more than once since then. (Websites, like basements, accumulate clutter, and sometimes the only fix is to start over.) This version is run by me, Steve Ledwith, and it has two jobs: to be a home for the Ledwith family and its history, and to be the place where I write about whatever I’m thinking about.

The writing side is up and running. The family history side is the long-term project, and this page is where it starts.

Where the Name Comes From

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Ledwith is one of many spellings of an old Norman name, de Ledwich, which simply means “of Ledwich,” a place in England. Over the centuries it has been written as Ledwich, Ledwidge, Ledwitch, Lidwich, Lutwyche, Ledwith, and more, depending on who was holding the pen.¹

Exactly which place is a matter of some debate. Most sources point to Ledwyche in Shropshire, a pair of hamlets now called Upper and Lower Ledwyche, which appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as “Ledewic.” The earliest recorded version of the surname is a Roger de Ledewich, who shows up in Shropshire court records in 1221.² Even the meaning is uncertain: the “wich” part comes from the Old English wic, a dwelling or farm, but scholars disagree about the first half.² If it makes you feel better, Rev. Patrick Woulfe, who wrote the standard reference on Irish surnames in 1923, said plainly that he couldn’t find the spot either.¹

The Irish Branch

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The name crossed to Ireland with the Anglo-Normans. After the Norman invasion in the late 1100s, Hugh de Lacy granted a family of the name land in Meath and Westmeath, and they settled at a place that became known as Ledwichtown, in County Westmeath.¹³ The name has been in Ireland since the early 1200s.² Like many of the old Anglo-Norman families, the Ledwiches later lost much of their land in the upheavals of the 1600s.³

A few people who carried some version of the name along the way:

• Edward Ledwich (1738–1823), an Irish clergyman and antiquarian who published Antiquities of Ireland in 1790. Later historians found plenty to disagree with in it, which I suspect is the fate of anyone who writes about history.⁴
• Francis Ledwidge (1887–1917), an Irish poet from County Meath who was killed in the First World War.³
• Mike Ledwith (1874–1929), an American baseball player, and Thomas A. Ledwith (1840–1898), an American lawyer and politician.⁵

Where our own branch fits into all of this, I don’t know yet. Figuring that out is the project.

About the Crest

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You’ve probably noticed the crest at the top of the site: an eagle with outstretched wings, a shield, and a lot of gold and silver.

To be clear, it’s a modern design, not a historic coat of arms. Traditionally, coats of arms were granted to individual people, not to everyone with a surname, so the “family crests” sold online are mostly nice pictures. This one is our nice picture. It looks good on the site, and I like what it stands for, but I’m not going to pretend it came from a medieval herald.

What’s Coming

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Over time, I want this site to become a real resource for the family. That means:

• a deeper look at the history of the name and its many spellings
• genealogy: tracing our branch back, and connecting with relatives I haven’t found yet
• family stories, photos, and the kind of history that never makes it into official records

That last one matters most to me. I’ve written before about the question of what we’ll leave behind. For a family, a big part of the answer is the stories. If nobody writes them down, they’re gone within a generation or two.

Get in Touch

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If you’re a Ledwith (or a Ledwich, or a Ledwidge), you’re researching the family, or you have a story or photo to share, I’d love to hear from you. You can find me through the links on my author page.

Sources

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