The Weld family may refer to an ancient English family, to their possible relations in New England, an extended family of "Boston Brahmins", or to their Irish or Antipodean relations. An early record of a Weld holding public office, is of the High Sheriff of London in 1352, William. In the 16th and 17th centuries people called Weld and living in Cheshire began to travel and to settle in the environs of London, in Shropshire, in Suffolk and thence in the American Colonies, and in Dorset. While the Welds of England had adopted Protestantism, the exception were all three sons of Sir John Weld of Edmonton who married into elite recusant families thus reverting, with their descendants, to Roman Catholicism. The noted Catholic Weld lineage unbroken till the new Millenium is that of Lulworth Cast