This site documents individual details and relationships in the Button Family, largely in America. The purpose is to share the information so that family members can stay in touch and to provide a widely accessible location for family members to update others about changes in their lives.
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Button is an English surname. The name is generally held to be occupational, for people involved in making or selling buttons, a word derived from the Old French bo(u)ton. However, other origins are possible. For example, a family which produced three bishops and a baronetcy derived their name from the village of Bitton in South Gloucestershire.
The surname Button was first found in Hampshire and later in Gloucestershire and Somerset. Lower says the family can be traced to the 13th century in Hampshire where Sir Walter de Button was progenitor of the family about 1216 A.D. The family had flourished for several centuries in that county, intermarrying with many distinguished families, supplementing their estates with marriages of the heiresses of the Furneaux, Bryan, Turbevilles, Bassets and others.
William of Bitton I (d. 1264,) also listed as William Button was a medieval Bishop of Bath and Wells. His nephews included another William of Bitton (d. 1274,) was also Bishop of Bath and Wells; and William's brother, a Thomas of Bitton (d. 1307,) an archdeacon and dean of Wells, and later Bishop of Exeter (1291-1307).