When Matthew Bowden was born in 1754, in Potterne, Wiltshire, England, his father, George Bowden, was 40 and his mother, Hannah Sainsbury, was 42. He married Jane Coleman on 26 December 1778, in Potterne, Wiltshire, England. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 9 daughters.
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1754– Male
1752–1822 Female
1779–1779 Female
1780–1841 Male
1783–1819 Female
1783– Female
1786–1835 Female
+8 More Children
1714– Male
1713–1767 Female
1735–1795 Male
1737– Female
1738– Male
1742– Female
1746– Male
+6 More Children
English: habitational name from any of several places called Bowden or Bowdon. Bowden in Devon and Derbyshire and Bowdon in Cheshire are named with Old English boga ‘bow’ + dūn ‘hill’, i.e. ‘hill shaped like a bow’; one in Leicestershire (Bugedone in Domesday Book) comes, according to Ekwall, from the Old English personal name Būga (masculine) or Bucge (feminine) + dūn. There are also Scottish places of this name, but there are comparatively few bearers of the surname Bowden north of the border. In England, the surname is found most frequently in Lancashire and in the West Country. In Devon and Cornwall there has been some confusion with the Norman personal name Baldwin .
English: topographic name for someone who lived at the top of a hill, from Middle English buve dun ‘above the hill’ (Old English būfan dūne, as in the placename Bowden, Wiltshire).
Scottish: habitational name from Bowden in Roxburghshire, named from Old English bōthl ‘dwelling-house’ + Old English denu ‘valley’.
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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