This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Bertram'; v. Bartram and Bertin.

Richard Bertram, Northumberland, 1168: Hodgson's History of Northumberland.

Berteram le Barbur, Salop, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Bertramus de Verdun, 7 Henry II: Pipe Roll.

Ricardus Bartrem, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Johannes Bartrem: ibid.

1741. Married — Benjamin Bertram and Sarah Mills: St. George, Hanover Square.

The Old English personal name Beorhtram, "shining raven." Johan Bertram, burgess of Inverkeithing, rendered homage, 1296 (Bain, II, 819). Walter Bartrem, who had a safe conduct to travel in England in 1464, may be Walter Bertrahame, provost of Edinburgh, 1482 (Bain, IV, 1343, 1480). He was also ambassador to France in 1482, and founded two chaplainries in St. Giles (Stodart, II, p. 413). Johannes Bertrame had a remission for his share in burning the town of Dunbertane, 1489 (Lennox, II, p. 133). Alexander Barthrame was apprentice in Edinburgh, 1667 (Edin. App.), and another Alexander Bertram was retoured heir of William Bertram of Neisbitt, 1690 (Retours, Lanark, 385). Barthram 1633, Bartram and Bartrim 1632, Bartrum 1625, Bertraham 1493, Bertrahame 1479, Bertrum 1670; Bartherem, Barthrem, Bartrome, Bertrem.

(French) Descendant of Bertrand (bright, raven).

A well-known baptismal name. The family is Norman, dating from temp. Hen. I., when William B. founded the Priory of Brinkburne, co. Northumb. Also local, as William de B. occurs in Domesd. as a tenant in chief, co. Hants. Two baronies by tenure were held in the name of Bertram down to the XIII. cent.

Fair and pure.

(Saxon.) Fair and pure.

The present-day concentration of the surname Bertrand in southwestern Louisiana belies its long and complex history in the state. Probably most of Louisiana's Bertrand families could trace ancestry to any one of several different forebears who migrated to the colony during the eighteenth century from France, Canada, Acadia, and possibly Switzerland.* Bertrands were among the earliest inhabitants in French posts along the Gulf Coast, in New Orleans, and at Natchitoches.

However, those who became important progenitors of today's families first settled in the German Coast along the Mississippi River and in the Opelousas District during the last half of the eighteenth century. Prior to 1750 two Bertrands, one from France, the other perhaps from Switzerland, had settled in the First German Coast (St. Charles Parish). Pierre Bertrand, native of Paris, in 1745 married a local woman, Marie-Jacobine Munich.

Their son, Frédéric (m. ca. 1770 Geneviève Mayer), of St. John Parish, in the late 1790s migrated to the Attakapas, where his two sons, Aléxis (m. 1804 Marguerite Richard) and Christophe (m. 1809 Marie-Victoire Cormier), helped to establish the family name.

Aléxis took land along Bayou Vermilion, and his sons Aléxis, Jr., Sil vestre, and Joseph were among the pioneer settlers (1840s-1850s) of the Mermentau District in the eastern Calcasieu.

Christophe, however, settled along the Teche, where his five sons and their descendants remained for most of the nineteenth century.

Antoine Bertrand, native of Morel, southern Switzerland, in 1751 married Anne-Barbe Dervain in St.

Charles Parish.

Antoine died in 1779, but for the remainder of the eighteenth century his five sons (Antoine, Jr., Aléxis, Jean-Baptiste, Joseph, and Vincent) maintained farms along the Mississippi River.

Around the beginning of the 1800s two of the sons, Vincent and Jean-Baptiste, left the German Coast for the Attakapas.

Vincent and his second wife, Victoire Gravois, settled along Bayou Vermilion; three of their sons-Ursin (m.

1832 Césaire Primeaux), Lucien (m. 1834 Catherine Noël), and Charles (m. 1842 Charlotte Gisclair)—obtained farms along the lower Vermilion near Abbeville;11 a fourth son, Vincent, Jr. (m. 1825 Émérante Richard) and his descendants settled in present Acadia Parish near Rayne.

Jean-Baptiste Bertrand and his second wife, Marguerite Schexnayder, by the early 1880s were among the pioneer planters along the lower Teche in St. Mary Parish.

The Bertrands who settled in the Opelousas area in the late eighteenth century came directly from Canada; they were as significant, or even more so, as the German Coast Bertrands in establishing the name in southwestern Louisiana. By 1766 Amable Bertrand dit Beaulieu, of Boucherville near Montreal, had arrived at Opelousas Post, where he married Anastasie Guenard and later started farming in the Plaisance area north of the post.

Before the Civil War descendants of his son Joseph (m.

1798 Marie Galien) had settled westward near present Ville Platte, Chataignier, and Eunice.

Amable's second marriage to Anastasie Aucoin in 1789 produced three sons-Pierre, Jean-Baptiste, and Louis, some of whose descendants established farms in the northern and central parts of present Acadia Parish, others remaining in the Plaisance area.

A second Bertrand from Canada, Jacques of Montreal, came to the Opelousas area apparently in the 1770s, marrying Louise-Constance la Miranda in 1778.

Like those of Amable, Jacques' descendants settled chiefly near Ville Platte and Eunice.

Likely, members of the two Canadian lines of Bertrands had reached southeastern Texas by the early 1900s.

Finally, three Bertrand families exiled from Acadia entered Louisiana with the migration of refugees from France in 1785: that of Eustache and Marguerite Landry, Pierre and Catherine Bourg, and Marguerite Blanchard (widow Bertrand) and her adult son, Jean-Nicolas.

The first two families were sent directly to live along Bayou Lafourche; the third went first to St. James Parish (where Jean-Nicholas married ca. 1788 Marguerite Pitre) and subsequently moved to the Lafourche.

The Acadian Bertrands appear to have contributed little to the founding of the name in southwestern Louisiana. Only a few of Jean-Nicholas' descendants remained in the Lafourche-Thibodaux area by the end of the last century