Surname Saturday

Mauzy, Mauzey, Mauze, Moze
For many years, Genealogical Record of the Descendants of Henry Mauzy, A Huguenot Refugee, the Ancestors of the Mauzys of Virginia and Other States from 1685 to 1910, by Richard Mauzy, 1911, was the definitive work on this family. It boasted responses from Mauzys all across the U.S., 105 pages on the descendants of Henry Mauzy. But it was only breadcrumbs showing the way, none of it supported by documents. Still, it was something.

Since then other researchers have taken up the search. It is generally thought that John Mauzé, born in England about 1675 to Michael Mauzé of France, is the common ancestor for the Mauzys of the U.S.

Dr. Armand Jean Mauzey published his research in 1950 in an excellent article for the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography¹. He believes the Mauzé name might have come from the Arabian word “Mauz”, a plantain tree, and may have been adopted during the Crusades. He documents 10 Mauzé families that left France for the British Isles between 1681 and 1724, Huguenots who fled France on the repeal of the Edict of Nantes. The family appears to have come from lands near LaRochelle.

The Mauzys undertook the hardship of escape from France, travel to the British Isles and then to the New World in search of religious tolerance and freedom. How proud and grateful we should all be for their courage.




1. Armand Jean Mauzey, M.D., D.S.C., “The Mauzey-Mauzy Family”, Virgina Magazine of History and Biography 58 (1950), 112-119.