BRUCE, BRUSEE, & BROUSSE
Our Bruce (Brousse) family originates in the Orkney Islands, part of a Viking band. Here our namesake Brusee sailed to France with his cousin Rollo, or Roland, where they accepted land from the King of France in lieu of Danegeld (ransom). There they settled to become landowners and ending their life of seafaring and raiding.
Our ancestor, Regenwald de Brusee, Earl of Ladoga, married Felicia, the daughter of the peer Robert of Normandy, and built Brusee Castle. The castle would be inherited by the first-born son through many generations. Less fortunate younger sons went to England with William the Conqueror to seek their fortune, and one of these descendants was Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland. In early 2022, I had the privilege of visiting with our Bruce family cousins in their home in Scotland, the descendants of Robert the Bruce. They very graciously received me and my husband, it was as if we had gone back in time!
Our family later became Protestants (Protesters), or French Huguenots, in the 16th century, and our immigrant ancestor, Jacques de la Brousse, arrived in Virginia in 1700 with his young son Pierre. They became residents of Manakintown until Peter migrated south to Halifax County, North Carolina.
I have a gap of several hundred years between these early Brusees in Normandy and the Huguenot family of Elie Brousse. Brousse resided in Cognac near La Rochelle and escaped to England and then on to Virginia in the latter part of the 17th century.
If any of my cousins have information about these missing years, I would be grateful for information. I also have sources for the facts.
​