This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Qi3.2ACIB/1990 Message Board Post: The Norton DNA project has shown us that there are probably hundreds of Norton family lines. Last names were handed out around 1086 when the Doomsday Book was being compiled. Norton is literally "North town". There are today 70 Norton villages in England alone. If there were three brothers in a village called North town, one brother might be called Cooper because he made barrels, one brother Smith because he was a blacksmith and the other Norton. So brothers might all have different last names and there might be 20 unrelated men in one village that got the last name Norton. In addition there are at least two noble Norton lines. Le Signeur do Norouile who came with William the Conqueror with the family seat at Sharpenhoe, Bedford, England. A branch of the Conyers family in Yorkshire, England took the Norton name about 1340 and from this line comes Fletcher Norton, Lord Grantly. There is also a Norton family in the Southwick, Hampshire area from very early (about 1300) Robert de Norton. We invite you to look at the Norton DNA page and we are looking for more Nortons especially from CT. http://www.nortonfamily.net/DNA.htm