From Megan Rigg's Geni profile of Sir John "the Crusader" Gold:   About John the CRUSADER (GOULD) Gould (Gold) John Gold (Gould) was a crusader of the 13th century. The Goulds are decended from this John Gold (Gole) granted an estate in the County of Somersetshire, England for his valor. (Source Collinson in History of Amersetshire) The name Gould, Gold, Goole, Goold, Goolde, can be traced in England to an early period, The family being of ancient Normandy stock which was transplanted to English soil with the coming of William the Conqueror. -------------------- http://www.selectsurnames.com/gould.html Select Gould Surname Genealogy Gould came from gold and was a nickname for someone with fair or golden hair. Shakespeare wrote: "Golden lads and lasses all must Consign to thee and come to dust." It is said that in the time of Shakespeare "gold" was pronounced "gould," which would give one indication as to why the spelling changed. However, one "Gould" family in Staffordshire was pronounced "Gold." So there could have been local dialect variations. Some think the Gould name may be Jewish in origin. It is not. Gould is a prominent Jewish name because Jewish names like Goldberg and Goldstein were anglicized to Gould. This occurred both in Britain and America. For instance, it was the Jewish Tommy Gould who received the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1942. Select Gould Resources on The Internet * Gould History Website. Descendants of Gould the crusader. * Dorchester and Goulds. Search - genealogy/books, Fire From Heaven. * The Gould Family of Charlton, Massachusetts. Descendants of Thomas Gould. Select Gould Ancestry England. The Goulds were mainly to be found in the west country, in a line from Somerset and Dorset in the south going north to Staffordshire. Was this because fair-haired people were unusual for the dark-haired Britons of the region? The surname Gould and its early variants probably developed as a nickname. It would not generally denote someone of rank or importance. John Golde was a soldier from Somerset who stood in for a Norman knight in a Crusade to the Holy Land. He distinguished himself at the siege of Damietta and, as a reward, was granted an estate at Seaborough in 1229. His descendants remained there until the 1500's and then have been traced to Devon, Dorset, and later to Hertfordshire. A line continued to early immigrants to New England. Goulds were to be found at Dorchester in Dorset from the 1500's. Some left with the Pilgrims; others remained. John Gould, a local merchant, established his home at West Stafford in the 1630's; James Gould was the MP in the 1690's; and Samuel Gould a bookseller and stationer in the 1750's. Some of these Dorset merchants made it in London; Nathaniel Gould who played a role in the formation of the Bank of England in 1694, and Edward Gould, another successful merchant who lived and died in Highgate. In 1902, Harry and Florence Gould opened a draper's shop in Dorchester, which flourishes today in the town as Goulds. There was also a Gould family at Studland in Dorset. Hikers will come across Jenny Gould's Gate (local legend has it that Jenny was a witch). And Lyme Regis produced that distinguished Victorian ornithologist, John Gould. One Gould family in Somerset traces its roots back to the village of Brewham, near Bruton. However, the most prominent of the Somerset Goulds was the family of Sir Henry Gould, a judge on the King's Bench who lived at Sharpham Park near Glastonbury. His grandson, the Rev. William Gould, was of a scientific nature, a naturalist whose work on ants earned him the title of "the father of British myrmecology." Another grandson from his daughter Sarah was Henry Fielding. It was she who encouraged him in his literary pursuits which resulted in his comic masterpiece, Tom Jones. A cluster of Goulds were to be found further north in Staffordshire and its environs. Goulds were tenant farmers in the upper Dovedale area of the Peak District on the Derbyshire/Staffordshire border. We remember them because William Gould kept a diary between 1783 and 1788 of his estate management for the Duke of Devonshire (which was handed down and later published). Joseph Gould farmed at Pilsbury Grange in the early 1800's and Goulds were still farming there a century or so later. The Gould family of Hanson Grange in Dove Dale produced Nathaniel Gould, a tea merchant in Manchester, and Nat Gould, a writer of popular sporting and adventure stories in the early 1900's. Nat is buried in the village of Bradbourne. Ireland. The Irish spelling has been Goold, traceable to William Goold (possibly of Anglo-Norman origin), the mayor of Cork in 1443. They remained there for generations, with some interruptions, as landowners and merchants, in latter years from a base at Old Court. However, the line fell away disastrously in the late 1800's. The elder son, James, ran away to Australia to escape his identity, working in laboring jobs there for the rest of his life. The younger son, Vere Goold, ended up being tried and convicted in a sensational murder case. America. There were a number of Goulds who arrived in New England in the 1630's. John and Grace Gould came on the Defence in 1635. Grace died soon after, but John, who settled in Charlestown, married twice more and raised five children. Zaccheus Gould and his wife Phebe from Hertfordshire came in 1638 and were the first settlers in Topsfield. He followed his brother Jeremy and his wife who had settled in Rhode Island because of the greater religious toleration there. Their Quaker son Daniel Gould and his descendants were farmers there for generations. Nathan Gould came to Fairfield, Connecticut in 1646 and was a member of the Connecticut Colonial Council from 1651 until his death in 1694. Later Goulds from this line were sea captains. Three Gould brothers - Robert, Thomas, and John - arrived in Hull, Massachusetts from Devon in 1664. The Rev. Daniel Gould from Cape Cod was one of the early settlers in Bethel, Maine. He was described as "of a rather worldly disposition, bringing the first chaise to Bethel, and wearing cocked hat, silk gown, and knee breeches around town." When he died in 1842, he left his entire estate for the formation of a local school on the proviso that it be named after him. Since the town of Bethel lacked a public high school, all local children were educated at the Gould Academy until 1969. Many later Goulds from New England headed westward. John Gould, who grew up in New Hampshire, set off for Moline in Illniois in the 1840's where he formed a business partnership with John Deere (later the famous plow manufacturer). John himself became a stalwart of Moline through his various business and civic enterprises Daniel Gould set off in 1857 for Davenport in Iowa where he established a carpet and furniture business. And Edward Gould was homesteading in Colorado in 1887 (the township of Gould is named after him). However, it was Jay Gould, from Roxbury in New York, who was to have the biggest impact on the West. In his early life he travelled the country as a surveyor. His interest later shifted to railroads and he became one of the big wheeler-dealers of the railroad expansion west and, in the process, amassed a huge fortune. His daughter Anna was a celebrity of her day, probably best known for her marriages and divorces. New York today has the largest number of Goulds in America. Nineteenth century Goulds included the New York merchant and financier, Charles Judson Gould. The numbers swelled with the Jewish immigration, Goldsteins and Goldbergs anglicizing their names to Gould. Prominent this century have been: Milton Gould, a famous New York trial attorney; Nathan Gould of the Jewish ORT foundation for women; Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science; Elliott Gould, a well-known Hollywood actor; and Carol Gould, the playwright, filmmaker, and journalist. http://genforum.genealogy.com/medieval/messages/2188.html An earliest American ancestor is, also named John Gould; he and his brothers Robert (Goold) and Thomas landed at Hull, MA ca. 1663/4. I have virtually nothing about Thomas, but suspect that he may have either moved to Salem, MA or to Long Island, NY. Robert was reportedly the first bricklayer in New England. Robert's descendants stayed in New England for several generations (alongside those of Zaccheus Gould, discussed below). John, my ancestor from Hull, moved first to Connecticut (where he apprenticed as a tailor and met and married Sarah Axtell, reportedly the daughter of Daniel Axtell, regicide), then to Long Island, NY (hence the possible connection to Thomas Gould on Long Island) and moved from there to the Horseneck neighborhood of what is today known as Caldwell, NJ, where he provided funds for the building of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, NJ. He is buried in the Old Burying Ground, right next to the church. Some of his life is documented in a book, "A Puritan Heritage," which is out of print but details the affairs of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, NJ. Oh, and to make things just a bit more interesting, I'm descended from Thomas Gould's line as well. One of his descendants was a fellow named Zaccheus Gould, of Topsfield, MA. Z's genealogy is fairly-well documented; there is a book about his line in the Topsfield, MA library that documents several generations of descendants of his, so if any of his relatives are out there, I'd like to hear from you, too! additional site: http://users.rcn.com/lmerrell/gouldfamily.html