>I am looking for a short history of the Bridges surname that I can add to my >webpage with the author's permission (I will give the author credit on my >site). It would be the Bridges/Bridgers surname and I hear we have some >Scots-Irish ties though I have yet to get that far back. Please feel free to >contact me. I ran across this on the web, but don't know where...maybe someone here knows who to attribute it to: Briggs: A North English and Scottish variant of Bridge, derived from the Old Norse bryggja. Bridge is an English Place name for the man who lived near a bridge, or an English Occupational name for the keeper of the bridge. Building and maintaining bridges was one of three main feudal occupations, the cost of which was occasionally offset by a toll charged to cross, and the keeper of the toll often acquired the surname. Variations are Bridges, Brigg, Briggs, Burge, Bridger, Bridgeman, Brigman. German cognitives include: Bruckmann, Bruckman, Bruck, Bruckner, Bruckner, Pruckner (Austria), Brugge, Brugger, Anderbrugge, Toderbrugge, Terbruggen (at the bridge). Van Bruggen is Flemish, and Van der Brug is Dutch. Other versions exist in additional countries.