With this website I have tried to bring together all the information passed to me by my brother Archie,my cousin Maureen ,Pauline Del Bono and Diana Gardner plus a lot of my own detective work, but it is an ongoing process as I try to contact other family members to add more information.It appears that in the early 17th century there were three main centres for Songhurst families,they being Ockley,Billingshurst and Bletchingley.Going back to the middle of the 16th century it would seem that there was just 2 lines,one in Ockley and the other in Ockham.If we have a common ancestry it is possible that we go right back to the time of William the Conqueror who ceded lands near Guilford to William De Sanghurst.Even now there is a Songhurst Farm near Wisborough Green and as it was often the custom for serfs to take their surname from their occupation,place of work or their master it is quite feasible that all the Songhursts have a common origin without being related directly.It is quite possible,even likely,that there are errors as I have found some myself in transmission of data between programs, so if anybody spots an error please notify me.A typical error is the transposition of dates when the day is below 12 as the American system puts the month first.I have now started extending the tree for my childrens' benefit to include my wife's family tree so I should really think about renaming the page.I try to update information weekly so do please revisit. FOR OUR AMERICAN COUSINS
 John Songhurst who was aboard the ship WELCOME with William Penn came from West Chiltington(not  Chillington) which is a small village 9miles South West of Horsham and there is probably a link to  our family but as yet I have been unable to find the records to track him. Excerpt from Surname database
 This unusual and attractive surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name either from Song Hurst in Ewhurst (Surrey), or from Songhurst Farm in Wisborough Green (Sussex). The component elements of the placename are believed to be either the Olde English pre 7th Century personal byname "Sunna", bright, shining, or the Olde English "sang, song", the musical utterance of birds, with "hyrst", hillock, copse, wooded eminence. The latter element became "hurst" in Middle English, and appears variously as "herst, hirst" and "hurst" in placenames where it occurs. Locational surnames, such as this, were originally given to local landowners, and the lord of the manor, and later as a means of identification to those who left their birthplace to settle elsewhere. In the modern idiom the surname has four spelling variations: Songhurst, Songist, Songust and Songest. On July 8th 1555, Richard Songhurst, an infant, was christened in Ockley, Surrey, and on November 17th 1588, the marriage of Thomas Songhurst to Marye Bickner took place in Rudgwick, Sussex. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Sunghurst, which was dated 1332, in the "Subsidy Rolls of Surrey", during the reign of King Edward 111, known as "The Father of the Navy", 1327 - 1377. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.