"Where did the English Stevens family come from? What is the English coat of arms/family crest? When did the Stevens family first arrive in the United States? Where did the various branches of the family go? What is the history of the family name? The ancestors of the Stevens family first reached the shores of England in the wave of migration after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Their name is derived from the ancient personal name Stephen, meaning crown, wreath, or garland. Anglo-Norman names tend to be marked by an enormous number of spelling variations. This is largely due to the fact that Old and Middle English lacked any spelling rules when Norman French was introduced in the 11th century. The languages of the English courts at that time were French and Latin. These various languages mixed quite freely in the evolving social milieu. The final element of this mix is that medieval scribes spelled words according to their sounds rather than any definite rules, so a name was often spelled in as many different ways as the number of documents it appeared in. The name was spelled Stephens, Stevens, Stephen, Steven, Stiven and many more. First found in Gloucestershire where they were descended from FitzStephen, a Breton knight who was conjecturally descended from Count Stephen of Brittany and accompanied William the Conqueror into England and fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Because of the political and religious discontent in England, families began to migrate abroad in enormous numbers. Faced with persecution and starvation at home, the open frontiers and generally less oppressive social environment of the New World seemed tantalizing indeed to many English people. The trip was difficult, and not all made it unscathed, but many of those who did get to Canada and the United States made important contributions to the young nations in which they settled. Some of the first North American settlers with Stevens name or one of its variants: John Stephens who settled in Virginia in 1635; Benjamin Stephens settled in the Barbados in 1660; Alice Stephens settled in the Barbados in 1651; John Stevens settled in Jamaica in 1684." http://houseofnames.com/fc.asp?sId=&s=Stevens