"1. Roger Ruscoe or Rescoe, of Sawbridgeworth, co. Herts, England, born probably about 1585, died 17 May 1618, having made his nuncupative will on the previous day. He married Sarah, who survived him. He was probably a son of Widow Hannah Ruscoe, who was buried at Sawbridgeworth 5 Aug. 1634, aged about 80 years. This family name is extremely rare in England, having been found in a very few instances and only in the counties of Essex and Herts. The earliest mention yet found of the name is in 1545, when John Rouscoue, alien, was assessed 3s. 4d. for goods at Great Dunmow, co. Essex, in a subsidy of 37 Henry VIII. (Lay Subsidies, 109/297.) This place is about ten miles east of Sawbridgeworth and the same distance north of Chelmsford. The name Ruscoe is probably of Flemish or Dutch origin, and evidently the family came into England during the sixteenth century, when there was considerable Huguenot immigration from across the English Channel, especially of textile workers, who settled in the cloth-manufacturing towns in Essex and Suffolk."