If anyone could help me with this question (I have many,many more,bye the way) I'd really appreciate it a lot.
The story goes....I live in Sydney Australia,with my family.We can trace our family tree on my mothers side (in a matriarchal way) back 6 generations; 5 of these generations are Australian, with the original ancestor coming out to Australia from Ireland. This is something we have always known & never thought really thought about it. On my fathers side (Walter Leo)we only only know as far back as our grandparents. My paternal grandmother died the year before my parents met & my paternal grandfather died when I was very young.My fathers family was a large one, 8 children in total (of 7 brothers & sisters; only 1 brother & 1 sister are still alive & my father is the youngest apart from a younger brother who died at 2 yrs ). For whatever reason his family was never close (my brother & sisters & I believe it probably had a lot to do with his mother dying at a relatively young age & his father remarrying someone his children did not get along with).
My siblings & I have been saying for years (as many people do), that we sould trace our family tree & find out exactly where our family originally came from prior to arriving in Australia. Due to a series of "unrelated", yet thought provoking events. Firstly, I returned from my 2nd trip to Europe in October 2000 (one of sisters & I took my Mum & Dad for their first overseas trip....they are both in their early sixties & had never been out of Australia before), whilst in Ireland we visited an old castle where they had a huge book of surnames & if you found yours in there they could trace the history of your surname & provide you with the coat of arms relating to that surname. We found (on my mothers side) my maternal grandmothers,great grandmothers & great great grandmothers names & had them "traced" for a fee of $30.00 each....& we also found my dads surname as well & had LEO "traced". Well we were surprised to be told it was a name of Italian descent....& were given a number of variations in spelling etc & what parts of Italy they originated from. Well you could have knocked my Dad over with a feather. He had no idea where his ancestors had come from (as none of us had), but always thought of himself as a "dinky di Aussie" of english/irish etc descent. Now he delights in telling people (when asked) that he's of Italian descent!! What a turnaround! It's funny but whenever people had asked us (my siblings & I, when we were growing up.."where our parents were from" - we always said Australia. Then they would say "well, how about your grandparents (& so on); where are they from?" agin we'd say Australian. Apart from one sister who has fair hair, fair skin & green/blue eyes, the rest of us have dark (curly to wavy)hair, dark eyes, & more olive skin (some more olive than others). The youngest sister & the 2nd youngest look almost identical aprt from colouring..1 fair straight hair, fair skin & green/blue eyes, & the other with dark "very curly" hair, dark eyes, & quite olive skin. This sister with the darker features & dark curly hair, & I, had met up in Europe in 1992 & spent a couple of weeks travelling around together. We thought it was quite funny that almost everywhere we went in southern Europe (especially Italy & Greece, everyone would start to talk to us in Italian/Greek & we would have to explain that we were neither, & they would look at us as if we were joking with them. However when I went back to Europe in October 2000 I was travelling with the "fairer" sister & my parents, & I was only mistaken for Italian a couple of times (at most) since I am somewhere in between the 2 in colouring. aI had our added to this, I was just completing a series of five books written by Colleen Mc Cullough (all set in Ancient Rome, around 100BC to 44BC)which had made me remember alot of my "schoolboy" Latin & required me (as the reader) to "learn" quite a lot of new Latin words & phrases. It was due to all this (& a few other things) that it finally dawned on me that LEO is the Latin word for lion. I realised I'd always known this, but had never pondered it or given it a moments thought. I'm sure most LEO's have been nicknamed "Leo the Lion" etc, when they were at school, or given their surname to someone in an official capacity & had them question the spelling & then had them say "Oh, as in the star sign ?"....not thinking for a minute that all the astrological signs are all in Latin (but I never stopped to think that LEO was not like most other English surnames or words that are "derived" from Latin, but actually still pure/original Latin). All these things occurred at about the same time that we purchased a book titled "The World Book Of LEO'S". It was bought "for fun", more out of a bit of idle curiosity than anything else. However when we read it, we started to get more & more interested. This book details the names & addresses of "LEOS" in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, South Africa, & Italy. This book also gives the "total estimated population" of LEO'S for each country as well & this merely confirmed what we had already been finding out (almost by accident). Without going into detail of numbers for every country. Italy has by far the highest concentration of LEO'S with approx 4,283 (households) & 12,078 (individuals)....followed by the USA 3,807 (households) & 8,375 (individuals), obviously all of these people had emmigrated to the USA from Europe at some stage (presumably from Italy, either directly or via someother country). Germany has the next highest "total" of LEO'S with 620 (households) & 1,550 (individuals) & then Australia with 440 (households) & 968 (individuals).
Well, I'm sorry if I have "raved" on a bit, but coming across this website has been very exciting for me & my few "short" lines have turned into something more like a novel.
So my point/question is, that no matter where we (as LEO's) are living now (or for "recent" generations), our various branches (of the family) probably all originted in Italy; or at the very least some "province" of the Roman Empire (in the dim dark mists of time),thus resulting in the "unadulterated" Roman/Latin surname of LEO!!
What are other peoples opinions on the "ultimate" orgin of our surname?? Sorry again....but I hope some of you find something of interest in the "info" above. If I can give any further info/assistance to anyone..please don't hesitate to ask. Or if anyone has anythiong else they would like to discuss....I'm all ears!!
All the best to all of you in your search. I'm only at the very beginning, but I already realise how time consuming/tiring this is going to be..(but at the same time very rewarding....it's 6am in Sydney & i'm yet to go to bed - oops!)
Thanks again David Leo (Sydney Australia).
My Email address is
david@cafesydney.net