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The surname Beauchamp is a French name that has been Latinized as de Bello Campo but still holds its topographical meaning as in Beau meaning fair and lovely and Champs meaning field or plain. Beauchamp= fair fields and beautiful lands.The numerous variations are Beauchamp, Beachamp, Beachem and De Beauchamp. The early French family was recorded in the province of Poitou where members of the Beauchamp family had held a seat on the council from the beginning of the recording of the family's existence. Many of the Beauchamps in France migrated in the Norman Conquest in 1066. From this migration settlements in the UK were common for the family. The family in Falaise area of France are noted in family stories, history books and documents were farmers for about fifteen generations. This family moved during the French Revolution to St, Nazaire, France which is located on the By of Biscay. Here the family industriously began trapping ocean water letting it evaporate, bagging the salt and selling it. The area where they known the carry out this business became known as the Beauchamp Saline and is still known as that. The last known son of the family joined the French Army as it was required of all males. When the French Army became disbanded after Napoleon's fall this man who was Francois Joseph Beauchamp Menier and his wife and children boarded a boat that was sailing to Martinique but the ship went aground off the shore of Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico they were offered land for cultivation under the provisions of the 1815 Real Cedula de Gracias. In Puerto Rico they settled in Añasco, Puerto Rico. Where they became naturalized under the Spanish flag in 1816, Like the Beauchamps around the world they tend to have been fighters, revolutionaries, politicians and hard workers. You will find these traits in the Beauchamp family repeatedly through history. Hugo de Beauchamp or de Bello Campo was given 43 lordships by William the Conquerer as reward for fighting along with William in battle. There the area where the Beauchamps are noted are the Bedfordshire, Buckingham and Hertford. Related to William Beauchamp are contacts of his proprietor of the manor in Essex in 1262, You can find on the list of Knights Templar of London another Beauchamp. You will also find the migration of Beauchamps during the settlements of the New World in Canada, and spread around the US.