What is the genealogy of the Robinson family name?

Answer 1

The surname Robinson, like Johnson and Davidson, is a patronymic surname. When surnames started to come into use, they took several forms: occupational surnames, like Baker and Smith, place-name surnames, like Brooks and Wood, descriptive surnames, like Brown or Armstrong, and patronymic surnames.

So if there were several Johns in one village, to distinguish them one might be called John the blacksmith, another might be John who lived by the wood, and a third might be John who was the son of Robin. Eventually these became John Smith, John Wood, and John Robinson, and their children then kept these surnames.

What this means is that not all Robinsons are necessarily related - there is no one "John Robinson" who is the ancestor of all Robinsons. Instead, there were a lot of different men who became "Robinson" as surnames were taken up, in many different places. Some companies claim to be able to sell you the history of a certain surname, but these are usually a waste of money; they might list some early Robinsons or some famous people by that name, but there's no way of knowing if they're related to you.

To get started on the genealogy of your particular branch of Robinsons, I'd recommend looking over a basic guide, such as http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/