"The name first appeared in the Domesday Book of 1086 with a Hugo de Montfort recorded as a tenant in the Domesday Book who arrived with William the Conqueror from Montfort-sur-Lisle in 1066 and having subsequently founded the Montfort family of Leicestershire and Warwick and whose titles included Duke of Brittany, Earl of Montfort and Earl of Richmond. The Kent Pipe Rolls of 1159 make reference to one Ralph de Munford, whilst Simon de Monteforte of Nottinghamshire and Petronilla de Monteforti of Wiltshire are recorded in the Hundred Rolls of 1273." (Courtesy of Royala Healy on the Munford Web Site)
"One branch of the family originally lived in Norfolk and belonged to the parish of "Mundford". There is still a town of Mundford near Kings Lynn. From church records we find the christening of John Munford at Norwich, St Peter Southgate, Norfolk in January 1574 also the marriage of Abigall Mondeford of Mondeford in Norfolk and Fredric Steward at St Michael Cornhill London in 1621. Also the name means 'of Montford' which is the name of a Parish five miles from Shrewsbury in the County of Shropshire. In time the name turned into Munford or Mumford. Simon de Montfort (Snr) was created Earl of Leicester by King John in 1206. A reference in The Patent Rolls in the year 1323 alludes to a Geoffrey de Mundeford and others of Dorset and Somerset, with two barges, who attacked a ship off Dover, belonging to the merchants of St. Omer, and took said ship to Weymouth where they divided its goods amongst them." (Courtesy of Bill Mumford)
Mumfords of early Va. may also have been Munford, Mountford, Montford, and other variations....