Mistaken Origins

Don Collins was asked many times over the years about supposed relationships between the Mayburys and other families with similar surnames. In 2016, he answered two such questions:

Are the Maybury and Mowbray/Moubray families related?

The Maybury and Mowbray families are both subject to numerous variant spellings, especially in early English records. This has led to speculation that the two families are related or that the Mayburys somehow descended from the Mowbrays. However, the two families are not related. The Mowbrays appeared in England much earlier and, for the most part, in different parts of England. In addition, DNA studies of both families show that the two families have distinct DNA signatures.

Are the Maybury and Marbury families related?

DNA tests show that the Maybury family and the Marbury/Marberry family are not related. Most American Marburys/Marberrys descend from Francis Marbury who came to Maryland from England about 1690. A separate Marbury/Marberry DNA Project has been established to learn more about the relationships in that family.

The confusion surrounding the origin and history of the Maybury surname comes from the difficulty in differentiating the great variety of spellings of the Maybury surname from the great variety of other similarly spelt or sounding surnames.