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According to Professor George F. Black's book, Surnames of Scotland (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1999 [first published by the New York Public Library, 1946]):
"COUBROUGH. A now not very common surname found in Lanarkshire and Midlothian. It is a shortened form of MacCoubrey, q.v. David Cowbratht witnessed testament of inventory of Catherine Lauder, 1515 (Swinton, p. xci). The name also occurs as Coulbrough and Cowbrough in Stirling (1511, Cowbroch). Euphame Cubrughe in Badow, parish of Calder, 1669 (Campsie). William Cubrugh, a Perthshire heritor, 1688 (RPC., 3. ser. XIII, p.332). John Couburgh in Balglairosh, parish of St. Ninian's, and two more recorded there (Stirling).
MACCOUBREY, MACCOUBRIE. G. Mac Cuithbreith 'son of Cuthbert,' q.v. Henry McCowthry in Galloway, 1539 (RSS., II, 2967). The Isle of Man has Coobragh from MacGiolla Cobraght, 'son of Cuthbert's servant.' The name of John Makopery, witness in Bute, 1513 (RMS., III, 1321), is perhaps another spelling."
In 2007, it is estimated that fewer than 500 living persons bear any variant of the Coubrough name, though of course there are many times that number of descendants through female lines who now bear other surnames. Few records are available from before 1650, but from those that do exist, it appears that all (or very nearly all) living bearers of the Coubrough and Cowbrough surnames are connected to a single ancestor who lived in the Stirlingshire area of Scotland sometime in the 16th century. Where this person came from, and whether he was indeed the "son of Cuthbert's servant," as Professor Black suggests, are both open to discussion. What is certain is that the small number of Coubroughs and Cowbroughs now living are to be found over much of the world. The largest numbers are in Scotland, Canada, and England, with other branches in New Zealand, the United States of America, Australia, South Africa, and Uruguay.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Coubrough is the most common spelling, with a small group using Cowbrough, and a single family using Coubro'. The two most often found in the old records are the two still most often used. However, there were also dozens of phonetic and semi-literate variants, including: Coubruh, Coubraugh, Conborough, Conbrugh, Conburgh, Couborough, Coubrach, Coubro, Coubroch, Coubrouch, Coubrogh, Coubrugh, Couburgh, Coulrough, Cowborough, Cowbro, Cowbroch, Cowbrog, Cowbrugh, Cowburgh, Cubrugh, Cubrigh, Cubrughe, and Cubry. In some old documents, depending on the handwriting, the name Galbraith can appear very similar to Coubrough, but the two names do not seem to be otherwise related in any way. Some genealogies published on the Web seem to have assumed the name Cunniburgh to belong to the Coubrough branch, but there is no evidence to support this connection either.
As for the name MacCoubrey, known living bearers of this name are even fewer in number than their Coubrough "cousins." While not overwhelmingly popular there, the MacCoubrey spelling seems to have been more prevalent in Ireland than in Scotland. In the mid-19th century, several MacCoubreys moved from Ireland to Scotland, where some of them dropped the "Mac," and began using the Coubrough spelling. It is not known for certain if the "Irish branch" were originally Scots who removed to the Emerald Isle (possibly as part of James VI's "plantations" to Ulster?), or if the 16th-century Scots ancestor was originally an Irishman who removed to Scotland for some now-forgotten reason. What we do know is that there are few, if any, MacCoubreys in the Scots records before the "potato famine emigrants" of the 1840s. Today (2007), the name is not common in Scotland, but there are several families in Canada and the United States bearing the MacCoubrey name.
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