Janet: Both the YERBY and YEARBY forms of this surname appear on genforum.com with a total of about 300 entries. A brief review indicates southern origins for this surname. There were less than 100 persons in the United States bearing that surname in the extant 1790 census according to "A Century of Population Growth." You may recall a very popular writer of historical fiction of the 1950's named Frank YERBY. Hope this helps, Dan