The last name Doody what county is it from?

Answer 1

The history of the name Doody dates back to a time before Irish names were

translated into English. The original Gaelic form of Doody was O Dubhda. The

first portion of the name comes from the word dubh, which means black, while

the second portion is probably an obsolete Irish personal name.

People who were accounted for by scribes and church officials often had their

name recorded many different ways because pronunciation was the only guide

those scribes and church officials had to go by. This resulted in the problem

of one person's name being recorded under several different variations, creating

the illusion of more than one person. Among the many spelling variations of

the surname Doody that are preserved in archival documents are Dowd, Duddy,

Doody, O'Dowd, Dowdy, Dowdie, Doudy, Doudie, Doudd, Doodie and many more.

Irish families left their homeland in astonishing numbers during the 19th

century in search of a better life. Although individual reasons vary, most

of these Irish families suffered from extreme poverty, lack of work

opportunities, and exorbitant rents in their homeland. Many decided to travel

to Australia or North America in the hopes of finding greater opportunities

and land. The Irish immigrants that came to North America initially settled

on the East Coast, often in major centers such as Boston or New York. But

like the many other cultures to settle in North America, the Irish traveled

to almost any region they felt held greater promise; as a result, many

Irish with gold fever moved all the way out to the Pacific coast. Others

before that time left for land along the St. Lawrence River and the Niagara

Peninsula, or the Maritimes as United Empire Loyalists</a>, for many Irish

did choose to side with the English during the American War of Independence.

The earliest wave of Irish migration, however, occurred during the Great Potato

Famine of the 1840s. An examination of early immigration and passenger lists

has revealed many people bearing the Doody name: the Dowd family who arrived

in Virginia as early as 1656. Thomas Dowd began the family trek. Most of

the family, however, landed following the Potato Famine and settled in

Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in the late 19th century.