Anderson Surname Meaning, History & Origin

Anderson is a patronymic name meaning “son of Andrew,” particularly popular in Scotland where St. Andrew is the patron saint. Anderson in America may be the anglicization of Scandinavian surnames such as Andersson, Andreasson or Anderssen.

Anderson Surname Resources on The Internet

• Clan Anderson Society. Anderson clan association.
• Anderson Family History. Andersons in Northumberland and County Mayo.
• John Anderson. Andersons of Hamilton county, Illinois.
• Andersons from Scotland to New Zealand. An Anderson family history.
• The Anderson Family. Andersons from Sweden to the US and Canada.
• Anderson DNA Project. Anderson DNA.

Anderson Surname Ancestry

• from NE Scotland, Northern England, Sweden and Denmark
• to Ireland, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

Scotland.  The name was first found in NE Scotland in the wild mountainous countryside of Badenoch by the Great Glen and Strathspey. It was recorded in 1400 as the Gaelic MacGilleandrich, then as Andrewson and MacAndrew before later becoming Anderson.  

“Little John MacAndrew, known in Gaelic as Iain Beg MacAindrea, was a bowman of note in the 17th century and a terror of all who fought against him. Many tales were told of his exploits and his vengeance on the cattle raiders who raided Basdenoch.”  

NE Scotland.  The largest group of Andersons at that time was to be found in the lands through Aberdeen, Banff and Moray in NE Scotland. They were not all wild men.

The Andersons in Aberdeen included those of Finshaugh, Downhill, and Candacraig. Alexander Anderson of Finshaugh was a noted mathematician of the early 17th century and other members of the family were equally distinguished. 

Andersons at English Mill in Inverurie dated from 1590 when their Anderson forebear took the King of Scotland on his ship to Denmark to marry Anne of Denmark.  Many descendants had military careers.

Glasgow.  John Anderson, born near Inverness, moved with his parents south to Glasgow in the 1670’s where he was a sea captain.  He rescued the survivors of the ill-fated Darien settlement scheme in Central America in 1700.

A later John Anderson, a noted genealogist, was born in Hamilton just outside Glasgow in 1789. His son William Anderson published his famous biographical history of the people of Scotland, The Scottish Nation, in 1863.

Today there are more Andersons in Glasgow than in the Highlands.

England. Andersons were also across the border in England. Sir Edmund Anderson was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas around the year 1600. He, however, had come from a Scottish family that had moved south to Lincolnshire in the 14th century.

Most Andersons were in northern England, in Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire. Andersons in Newcastle date from 1520 when Henry Anderson, a merchant, was Sheriff of Newcastle. From this line came the Andersons of Jesmond and Bradley.

Matthew Anderson was born into a family of millers at Barrow Mill in Northumberland in 1784.  He became a shepherd.  After his wife died, he left his home there with his four sons for Mayo in Ireland in 1852.

Ireland. Andersons from Scotland came to Ireland at the time of the Ulster plantations.

There were the Andersons of Lisnamulligan in the Finn valley of Donegal and the Andersons who owned the Lough Gill brewery in Sligo.

However, the most prosperous of these Andersons were probably the Andersons of Coleraine in county Antrim.  Alexander Anderson, born in 1801, became a highly successful wine and spirit merchant on Church Street in Coleraine.

On his death in 1871, the business passed to his nephew Hugh.  And Hugh did even better.  On Hugh’s death in 1899, the Northern Constitution hailed him as Coleraine’s most prominent townsman.

America.  The first Andersons in America were probably English.

Virginia.  An Anderson family from Lincolnshire came to Virginia in 1635.  Two brothers Thomas and John were said to have started a shipbuilding yard at Gloucester Point on the York river. Armstead Anderson of this family migrated to Kentucky in the 1790’s.

Numerous other Andersons, from both England and Scotland, had arrived in Virginia by 1700. There were 17 Andersons recorded in the Virginia rent roll of 1704.

A number of Andersons from Northumberland and Berwickshire settled along the Chesapeake Bay shore in either Virginia or Maryland. John Anderson had arrived in Virginia in the 1750’s and later settled in Kentucky.

By the early 1800’s, other Andersons had spread from Virginia north to Pennsylvania or west into Ohio.

Scandinavians. Many of the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes who emigrated to America with the last name Andersson, Andreasson or Anderssen dropped the extra “s” after their arrival.

One early presence was Erik Anderson of Swedish parentage, born in the New Sweden colony in Delaware sometime in the 1660’s. He lived to be almost a hundred years old.

Then there was John Anderson of Swedish ancestry who ran Anderson’s ferry along the Susquehanna river in Pennsylvania in the 1750’s. His son William by an Indian wife became Chief Anderson of the Delaware tribe and is commemorated today by the town of Anderson, Indiana.

However, the main Scandinavian influx was later. The peak years for immigration were from 1875 to 1892. Some of the arrivals at that time were:

• Charles Anderson from Gotenburg in Sweden who was in Peoria, Illinois in the late 1870’s
• Jeppe Anderson from Kjelst in Denmark who had reached Omaha, Nebraska in the early 1880’s
• Henry Anderson from Odense in Denmark who was in Harper county, Kansas in the mid 1880’s.
• and Alfred Anderson from Vastergotland in Sweden who married in Marshall county, Minnesota in the late 1880’s.

These Scandinavian Andersons account for the high number of Andersons to be found in Midwest states such as Minnesota (which had the largest Anderson population by 1920).  Notable Andersons here were:

• Robert Anderson, the famous oilman and wildcatter, who was the son of Swedish parents
• and Elmer Anderson, also of Swedish extraction, who was the Governor of Minnesota in the 1950’s.

Canada.  Samuel Anderson, the son of Irish parent immigrants to America, was a Loyalist who crossed the border into Canada after his property in Vermont had been confiscated.  He settled in Cornwall, Ontario in 1783.  His son Thomas was involved in the Indian fur trade for more than fifty years. 

Thomas and Mary Anderson from Yorkshire came to Sackville, New Brunswick in 1772. Their descendants have remained there to this day.

Scandinavians.  And there were Andersons of Scandinavian origin who came to the Canadian West to homestead in the 1890’s and 1900’s after the American frontier had closed down.

Henry and Emma Anderson from Norway had gone first to Minnesota and then to South Dakota before heading north to Alberta in 1906.  Their grand-daughter is the folk singer Joni Mitchell (nee Anderson).

Australia.  An Anderson family from Scotland have been graziers and landowners at Mullaley in northern NSW since the 1840’s.

The sixth generation descendant has been John Anderson who was Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister from 1999 to 2005.  Since his retirement from politics in 2007, he has returned to his roots at Mullaley.

New Zealand.  John and Isabella Anderson from Scotland had met in New Zealand and married in Nelson in 1844.

When they heard about the Scottish settlement being planned for Otago, they chartered the Ann and Sarah and set sail for the south.  After circumnavigating Otago harbor, they selected a site by the Anderson Bay inlet, pitched their tents on the shore, and  waited for the Scottish settlers to arrive.  It proved a long wait.  The settlers did not arrive until 1847.

Another John Anderson, from Edinburgh, came to New Zealand with his family in 1850 and made his home in Christchurch.  He prospered there from his various business enterprises and was Mayor of Christchurch in 1868.   His son John expanded his business activities and became one of New Zealand’s largest bridge builders.

Other Andersons also arrived in Otago in the 1840’s.

Joni Mitchell nee Anderson Family Ancestry

Joni Mitchell the folk singer was born Joan Anderson in Canada and the name was only Anderson from the time that her great grandfather arrived in America from Norway in 1869.

Just click below if you want to read more about this family line from Norway to the American and Canadian West:

•   Joni Mitchell’s Family History

Anderson Surname Miscellany