Where did our name come from?

“ROCKHOLT”  Could be a variant of the Germanic “Rockolt”, a variant of “Rocholt”, or “Rocholl”; thought to be from variants of  a Germanic personal name, “Hrokwald”, composed of the elements hrok (prudence) or (care) + wald (rule),  and by others thought to be of Slavic origin.  I also found reference to the name, as being “Rockwell”, formally Rockholt, from old English:  hroc (rook) + holt (wood), of Buckinghamshire and Somerset, England.  I have not been able to source anything in England or Germany that leads me to strongly believe in one idea over the other.

While I did find many sources of Rockholt’s in Germany in the 17^th and 18^th century, the given names were all in the Germanic form, such as Karl, Johanna, Helmut or Wilhelm.  Our family is full of those named John, Robert and William, all of which could have been anglicized versions of the Germanic form.  In England, the Rockwell name is present.  I did find a few Rockhould and Rockhole references but was able to eliminate them with parallel references to Rockwell, which I found to be the correct listing.  I have made contact with a few Rockholts in Sweden but are still trying to break the language barrier.

So, what does all this mean?  From my perspective, and it’s simply my “learned opinion” at best:  With the Virginia colony being English, and the settlers being English, which at that time also included England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales (at least to some extent), it is easy to assume that the settlers were for the most part English.  There were some, but not a lot, of Dutch settlers in the early days of the English colonies, but the Germans did not show up until after the revolutionary war.  I believe our original American immigrant, Robert Rockhould, left England and moved first to the Netherlands, where he married and began the family.  Once the new world settlements were somewhat established, he moved his family to Virginia.

Either our ancestors were English, Rockwell’s turned Rockhould, turned Rockhold and Rockholt, or they were of German extraction, some how moved through England leaving no trace behind (at least I have not found it yet).  I doubt there can be clear, concise proof short of a lot of DNA research.

From all I have been able to determine, our early ancestors immigrated to America from the Netherlands.  Indications are that the earliest was Robert Rockhould, who probably left England for Holland in the turmoil of the religious uprisings of the early 1600s.  Some time passed while he was in Holland, he married and had children before departing for the English colony of Virginia in 1637.  Tracing our ancestry into the Netherlands or England, during the time of Robert, is proving very difficult.  While there is great evidence of German movement into England prior to the 1600’s, there is little recorded history from which information can be gathered.   Some of the wives of the earliest found American Rockholts were of Welch and Scottish birth, leading me to believe that the early Rockholts, while maybe of German extraction, were English.  I have found records of Rockhoulds in Faizhead, Somerset, England in the church records of St James.  There are also records for the Rockwells.  Maybe the names were recorded in error, maybe both surnames existed.  More research is needed.

Virginia had its’ own problems with religious practices and that seems to be the reason Robert and his family left Virginia to join other English in the new colony of Maryland where religious freedom was to be available.  History tells us otherwise, but the colonist prevailed in their revolt  against British rule, first gaining independence, then eventually ceding the government back over to Colonial rule with assurances of religious freedom.  But, in time the Colonial rule just proved too much and the Revolutionary War was on.

Our family members have been present in every major war/uprising, sometimes even on opposing sides.  Robert was an armourer by trade, active in the Savern and Patuxent  uprising.  He was, from what I  can find, a prosperous individual.  His name is found as being indebted to on several wills.   At the same time it appears that he did not get involved in politics, his name is not found on any documents relating to government.

The Virginia  Colony seems to be the earliest settling of the Rockholt/Rockhold families in the Americas.   From there they moved into Maryland and down into Tennessee, into the Carolinas, and New York .  They seemed to spread out, generally as the Unitied States expanded, so did the family.  Farmers, craftsmen, school teachers, railroad men, preachers, boat builders, merchants, solders, sailers and statesman.  They seem to have ventured into about every aspect of the nation, both in occupation and in location, There is today a large number of Rockholts in Tennessee, they are also concentrated in Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and California.

Variants of the name, be they the result of intentional or unintentional change, have been found while researching the family genealogy.  While today our line spells the family name “ROCKHOLT”, it appears also as ROCKHOLD.  The use of Rockhould seems to have been only used for two or three generations  The family ROCKWELL seems to have originated from some source other than Robert Rockhould, even though you will find any number of Rockwell family trees that show Robert as their American origin.  The Rockwell Foundation (Norman Rockwell) has done a lot of DNA research and pretty much ruled out Robert from their line.  There is one ROCKHOLD family line originating in Maine in the late 1600s which does not appear to associate with our Robert and his descendents, but could well come from the same origin.

And the search continues.