Scriven

Our side of the Scriven family has lived in Ontario, Canada since at least 1861. We know that Joseph Scrivens Jr was born in England around the year 1809, but the family is hard to trace before that. 

The family name was spelled ‘Scrivens’ until about 1897. It’s difficult to know the origin of the name, especially since our Scriven ancestry can’t yet be tied to a specific part of England, but it’s likely a Norman-origin occupational name, derived from the French word escrivein, which refers to a scribe or clerk.

There’s an alternate possibility the name has Saxon roots, referring to a resident of the Yorkshire town of Scriven, which is believed to be named from the Old English scraefing, meaning “little caves”.