nbi second edition reviewed - the guild of one-name studies

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NBI Second Editionreviewed �is it valuefor one-namers?

Convertingdata from MS Access to GEDCOM

Early historyof the Guild� by ourPresident

NottinghamComputerSeminar andother news

Box G, 14 Charterhouse BuildingsGoswell Road, London EC1M 7BA

E-mail: [email protected]: www.one-name.org

Registered as a charity in England and Wales No. 802048

PresidentDerek A Palgrave MA FRHistS FSG

Vice-PresidentsPeter GoodallErnest HamleyJohn HebdenPeter Towey

Guild information

SalesAS well as Guild publications, theSales Manager has a supply of Jour-nal folders, ties, lapel badges andback issues of the Journal. Theaddress is:

Howard Benbrook7 Amber HillCamberleySurreyGU15 1EBEngland

E-mail enquiries to: [email protected]

ForumTHIS online discussion forum isopen to any member with access toe-mail. You can join the list bysending a message with your mem-bership number to:

[email protected] e-mail a message to the forum,send it to:

[email protected]

Regional RepresentativesA LIST of Regional Representativesof the Guild in a number of UKcounties and overseas can be foundon the inside back cover of thisJournal. If you are interested inbecoming a Regional Rep, pleasecontact the Regional Representa-tives Coordinator, Barbara Harvey(address and phone number on theinside back cover).

The Journal of One-Name Studies ispublished quarterly by the Guild ofOne-Name Studies.

ISSN 0262-4842' Journal of One-Name Studies

Guild CommitteeThe Committee consists of the

Officers, plus the following:Rob Alexander

Howard BenbrookJeanne Bunting FSG

Rod ClayburnJohn Hanson

Barbara Harvey Paul Millington

Roy Rayment

LibrarianVacant

Regional Reps Co-ordinatorBarbara Harvey

Bookstall & Sales ManagerHoward BenbrookForum Manager

Peter WalkerWebsite Manager

Paul MillingtonPublicity Manager

Roy RaymentData Processing Manager

John Hanson

SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMENExecutive Ken Toll

Publications Ken TollSeminars Jeanne Bunting FSG

GUILD OFFICERS

CHAIRMANKen Toll20 North RoadThree BridgesW Sussex RH10 1JX01293 404986

[email protected]

VICE-CHAIRMANPeter Walker24 Bacons DriveCuffleyHertfordshireEN6 4DU01707 873778

[email protected]

SECRETARYKirsty Maunder11 Brendon CloseTilehurst, ReadingBerkshire RG30 6EA0118 9414833

[email protected]

REGISTRARRoger GoacherSpringwoodFurzefield RoadEast GrinsteadW Sussex RH19 2EF01342 326663

[email protected]

TREASURERSandra Turner2 St Annes CloseWinchesterHants SO22 4LQ01962 840388

[email protected]

EDITORRoy Stockdill6 First AvenueGarston, WatfordHerts WD25 9PZ01923 893735

[email protected]

6 Converting your one-name data from Microsoft Access files to GEDCOM � COVER STORYCLIFF KEMBALL describes his approach to converting database records for transferring into The Master Genealogist program

9 Why do some surname variants become fixed?STEVE TANNER gives a sociolinguist�s view of surname spelling variants

12 One-name studies without a computer � more personal stories from members14 A few quibbles but NBI 2 is a good buy for one-namers � COVER STORY

HOWARD BENBROOK reviews the new edition of the National Burial Index16 Modern mapping of your ONS surname by postcode � COVER STORY

DAVID MELLOR compares surname mapping from the 1881 census withthe same exercise using present-day postcodes

19 History and development of the Guild from its early daysPresident Derek Palgrave tells tales of the founding of the Guild

22 Nottingham Computer Seminar lived up to expectations23 Seminars update26 Guild area meeting addressed by FONS man � Guild 2004 Website Awards27 Journal wins Elizabeth Simpson Award for 2nd time � Scottish AFHS Conference28 Top speakers and name theme for Guild�s 2005 Annual Conference

4 Chairman�s Notes KEN TOLL5 Just My Opinion ROY STOCKDILL24 A View From The Bookstall HOWARD BENBROOK25 Registrar�s Notes ROGER GOACHER28 Reviews of new genealogy books and CDs

3

MAIN ARTICLES

GUILD REPORTS � NEWS � EVENTS

REGULARS

ARTICLES, letters and other contributions are welcomed from members,especially accompanied by illustrations, and should be sent to the Editor.Publication dates will normally be the first day of January, April, July andOctober.

Copyright of material is to the Editor and Publishers of the Journal of One-Name Studies and the author. No material may be reproduced in part or inwhole without the prior permission of the publishers.

The views expressed in the Journal are those of individual contributors andare not necessarily those of the Committee of the Guild of One-Name Studies.

�LL START with some goodnews this time. I�ve justreturned from the Federa-tion of Family History

Societies Conference where theGuild won the Elizabeth Simpsonaward for the second time. Welldone, Roy.

We were well represented atthe Conference and it was goodto be able to meet so many Guildfriends. I hope we can meet evenmore of you at the Guild Confer-ence next April. Our Conferencesub-committee has now bookedWyboston Lakes again, as it wasan excellent venue last year, andwe have already lined up someexcellent speakers.

GremlinsNow the bad news. Despite

our best intentions, the gremlinsconspired again to thwart ourplans to have the correct GuildAccounts sent out by our printers,Flexpress. Pages one, two andfour were correct, but page threewas from an earlier draft set andcontained several errors. On thisoccasion it was an own goal, aswe sent the wrong page to theprinters. Humble apologies frommyself & the gremlins! The cor-rect pages will be with theprinters in time to go out withthis Journal.

In the previous Journal Iannounced the intention to setup a NewsFlash facility. Thanks toAlec Tritton recommending suit-able software, Peter Walkerimplementing it and John Hansongenerating a compatible mem-bership database extract, we nowhave a working system. It allowsme to communicate rapidly withall members who have advised us

of their e-mail address. Unfor-tunately, it is not practical to mailcopies to other members.

The first edition was generallywell received by the 1,400 or somembers it was sent to, althougha few deleted it erroneously,assuming it was spam. We alsolearned several valuable lessonsand identified numerous mem-bers who had not advised us of achange of e-mail address.

The first issue of NewsFlashcontained details of completelyfree access to Ancestry.com via athird party website. As the offerwas time-limited it was an idealsubject for a NewsFlash � by thetime this Journal is distributedthe offer will have expired.

The second issue containedadditional details of the Notting-ham Seminar and advised thatPaul Millington has redecoratedthe member’s room in ourwebsite and he had added thebookstall pages. Further issueswill be distributed as and whenthe need arises.

ConstitutionI would be delighted to be

able to send NewsFlash to allmembers with access to e-mailfacilities, but we will need yourcurrent e-mail address. To add ane-mail address to your currentmembership details, either visitthe Member�s Room on ourwebsite and fill in the ChangesForm, or send an e-mail with yourname, membership number ande-mail address to [email protected]

During the last few months I,with the help of a small workinggroup, have been reviewing ourConstitution. Over the past five

years or so we had not imple-mented some of the CharityCommission�s recommendationsas and when they have beenmade available, so we have a bitof a catching-up exercise to do.We are also taking the opportun-ity to propose changes to makerunning the Guild easier and lessonerous for Committee members,whilst preserving the safeguardsrequired by the membership andthe Charity Commission. I plan toprovide more detail in a futureJournal � hopefully, in January.

Since the last Journal therehave been a few changes on theCommittee. Paul Millington hasstood down as Vice-Chairman,but continues as webmaster andCommittee Member. Roy Ray-ment has stood down as PublicityManager, but continues as a Com-mittee Member. They have bothmade a huge contribution to theGuild in their respective roles. Ona more positive note, KirstyMaunder has taken on the addi-tional role of Marketing Mana-ger. Hopefully, I shall be able toannounce further new appoint-ments in the next Journal.

I have decided to stand downas Chairman at the AGM in 2005in order to have a little moretime to pursue my own one-namestudy and to allow someone elsethe opportunity to take thereigns. I have offered to stay onthe Committee in another role ifrequired, perhaps to continuewith managing the revision tothe Constitution.

Meanwhile at home, we had amajor genealogical event. Mydaughter married in August andthereby acquired an even rarersurname. ❍

4

I

Journal of One-Name Studies, October�December 2004

New Newsflashfacility enables usto communicatequickly with e-mail members

Journal of One-Name Studies, October�December 2004 5

ID you read that story inthe papers a while backabout a fellow calledMike Pimbury, who

believed he was the last personof his surname in the entireworld? At 73, he has nevermarried and, therefore, the namewill die with him.

Sad, what? But he can hardlybe alone in this situation. Theremust surely have been thousandsof names that have come andgone and had nobody to carrythem on and, no doubt, therewill be many more surnames withbearers in single figures that faceextinction.

You have only to look at theUKinfo 2003 CD, based on theelectoral registers and telephonedirectories, to find scores ofnames with only a tiny handful ofentries � and I am talking aboutBritish names, not foreign ones.

I am sure Mike Pimbury�s storymust have fascinated many familyhistorians, but the thoughtoccurred to me that perhaps hewas being a little obsessive aboutit in scouring the world trying tofind somebody else who sharedhis very rare surname.

VariantIt seemed to me that, beyond a

doubt, his name is simply a vari-ant of PEMBURY. When the storyappeared, I did a quick check inthe IGI in FamilySearch and dis-covered that the PIMBURYversion appeared to have comeentirely from one small area ofGloucestershire around Minchin-hampton and Stroud, seeminglyoriginating in about 1666 withone William Pimbury at Bisley,who had children in the 1690s.

Clearly, this was the usual caseof a vicar�s misspelling and thevariant appears to have been

confined to this one family � inwhich case one might say it�s awonder the name has lasted aslong as it has!

I looked on the UKinfo disc forpeople called Pembury and foundover 50, half of them in Bristol,which suggests they are possiblydistant relatives of Mike Pimbury.

However, perhaps he does notwish to acknowledge this fact,preferring to stick with his beliefthat, as the last of the Pimburys,he has no living relations.

I used to think like this myselfbefore I became a familyhistorian about 30 years ago.Growing up, the only otherStockdills I ever knew of were myparents and my father�sbrother, my Uncle Albert Stock-dill, who I only met after myfather died because the twobrothers were estranged for yearsafter some family squabble. Mydad had two sisters, my aunts,but they, being married, hadother surnames.

Then one day when I wasabout 14 a chum and I werecycling from Halifax to York and,while riding through the centreof Leeds, I suddenly saw thename, Stockdill, on a sign over anewsagent�s shop window. I wasso startled by this totally unex-pected sighting of my surnamethat I almost fell off my bike!

Unfortunately, my friend waswell down the road ahead of me,so I had no time to stop and gointo the shop and find out whothe owner was.

However, I actually had thegreat pleasure of meeting himmany years later when I hadbegun to trace the family historyand came across other livingStockdills. His name was JackStockdill and we turned out to bethird cousins once removed. He

was a lovely man and we kept intouch until he died.

Later, I found other Stockdillsalso related to me in Yorkshireand Hertfordshire and a family inScotland who were not, as I far asI know, connected to me becausethey had come from Ireland.However, they joined enthusiasti-cally in my tracing of the familyhistory and surname, since I havelittle doubt that their family, likemine, originated in Yorkshire.

From there I found someStockdill distant cousins inCanada and other Stockdills inAmerica who, though I have notyet tied them in to our family,share the name.

ReunionIt was my great joy in 1997 to

organise a big family reunion inLeeds, at which out of the 60people present over one-thirdwere called Stockdill. I could nothelp thinking back to all thoseyears earlier when I had thoughtmy parents and I were the onlyfolks in the world with the name.

Of course, I recognise thatthere must be hundreds of peo-ple also distantly related to mewho possess the far more com-mon root name of STOCKDALE.Organising a family reunion ofthem would probably require meto hire the Royal Albert Hall!

It seems that Mike Pimburyemployed a genealogist to tryand find someone else of hisname, somewhere in the world,and she failed to do so. I hopeshe explained to him that he wasreally a Pembury and, therefore,not necessarily the last of his line.

Perhaps if he had done a one-name study and discovered thisfor himself he would not bequite so forlorn about his namedisappearing. ❍

Should we beobsessive aboutrare surnamesdisappearing?

6 Journal of One-Name Studies, October�December 2004

his article describes the appro-ach I took to convert the data Iheld on a Microsoft Accessdatabase to The Master

Genealogist (TMG) via the creation ofGEDCOM files.

One thing that will be common withall Guild members who are undertak-ing a one-name study is that they arelikely to have accumulated a largenumber of records concerning thebirths, marriages and deaths of peoplewith a common surname. How thisinformation is held will vary. It may beheld manually, but more often than notit will be held on some sort of compu-ter software, i.e. on a family treeprogram, a flatfile program, a rela-tional database or on databases usingready-made templates.

In practice, most one-namers main-tain two or more sets of their data totake advantage of the differentstrengths of the programs, as no singleprogram fulfils the needs of one-namers. At some stage we are likely towant to transfer our data from oneprogram to another program � usuallya family tree program � to take advan-tage of the increased facilities for

linking individuals, producing reportsand printing family history charts. Howcan this best be achieved without theneed to key in all the informationagain, with all the inherent risksinvolved of making mistakes?

The approach I adopted for transfer-ring data to TMG (Figure 1) was tocreate an Access enquiry to select therecords I needed to convert. I combinedthis information with the appropriateGEDCOM tag information to produce afile similar to a GEDCOM file.

I then transferred this file to a textfile and edited it in Word, mainly toput in the appropriate carriage returns,take out any extraneous characters orunwanted spaces and add in theheader and trailer information. I thennamed the text file as a .ged file.

� Run an enquiry to select recordsMy database holds over 19,000

records of the births, marriages anddeaths for the Kemball surname,including all its variants, and eachrecord has a unique iD, meaning thatan individual will have up to threedifferent iD numbers. I make noattempt to link these individuals in mydatabase, preferring instead to carry

MANY Guildmembers will haveamassed copiousamounts of dataover the years theyhave been involvedin running a one-name study.

What to do withall this informationand how to store itis something thatone-namers tend toapproach indifferent ways.Some may wish topreserve theirrecords in morethan one format. Inthis special article,member CLIFFKEMBALL describeshis method forconverting dataheld in a MicrosoftAccess database toGEDCOM files,ready for importinginto a family treeprogram such asThe MasterGenealogist.

By CliffKemball

Converting your one-namestudy data from MicrosoftAccess files to GEDCOM

Figure 1 � steps taken to convert data from Access to GEDCOM


out this linking function in TMG. Many people undertaking one-name studies will

structure their data differently, but they should stillbe able to apply the principles involved in transfer-ring data. I have a �record type� indicator that Iused to produce an enquiry of Kemble records todistinguish between births, marriages and deathsand many other record types.

This article deals only with the process of transfer-ring birth records to a GEDCOM file, but the processcan be used to transfer all other record types.

Having run theenquiry, you now havean Access file of all yourbirth records for a par-ticular surname. Detail ofthe data fields and theircontent are shown onthe left hand side ofFigure 2 (left).

� Design a GEDCOM information table

The next stage is toproduce a table to pro-vide all the GEDCOM taginformation. GEDCOM isan acronym forGEnealogy Data COM-munication. It wasdeveloped by the Churchof Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and hasevolved as the de factostandard for dataexchange between mostgenealogy software pro-grams and systems.

A GEDCOM file con-tains a set of genealogydata in a structured for-mat, utilising numbers toindicate the hierarchyand Tags to indicateindividual pieces of infor-mation within the file.

You need to create aGEDCOM informationtable for births that con-tains only one record,details of which areshown on the right-handside of Figure 2.

� Run an enquiry to combine GEDCOM information and Genealogy data

The third stage is to combine the GEDCOMinformation with your genealogy data. This isachieved by running another Access enquiry, usingthe GEDCOM information table with the initialenquiry file containing the birth genealogy data. Ihave listed the results of this birth enquiry showingthe genealogical data for one record in bold. Howthe data is combined in the enquiry is demonstratedmore clearly in Figure 2. The left-hand side has thegenealogy birth data (shown in bold), while theright hand side has the GEDCOM information.

Figure 2 � combining data and GEDCOM information

Example of output from birth enquiry...0 @I 9721 @ INDI %1 NAME Joseph Colin / Kemble /

%1 SEX M %1 BIRT %2 DATE 1 OCT 1998 %2 PLAC Colchester ,,, %2 SOUR @S1@ %3 DATA%4 TEXT Birth source: 4691DD63C073 %2 QUAY2%1 NOTE Mothers maiden name: Jane Smith


You now have a combined file that can be usedto produce a GEDCOM file.

� Copy data to text fileThe next stage is to copy the data from the birth

enquiry to a text file by clicking the top left-handsquare of the Access query sheet, then right-clickingand selecting copy. In Word paste special (Edit, PasteSpecial, Unformatted Text, ok) and save it as a textfile. You now have a text file showing each recordon one line.

� Edit Text fileThe fifth stage is to edit the text file to put in the

appropriate carriage returns and take out theextraneous spaces, etc. The text file has to be editedin Word, as the edit facility is not available withinNotepad. As the first record will be the headerdetails from Access, this needs to be deleted. To editthe text file, press [Ctrl]+F to enter �Find andReplace� and press �More� tab to reveal the�special� tab needed to apply the special characters.Figure 3 lists all the �Find and replace� actionsundertaken for births records. Figure 4 shows theresults of the editing � a listing for one birth recordin GEDCOM format.

You will see that I have replaced all the % charac-ters with carriage returns to put each GEDCOM tagon a separate line. The rest of the editing takes outthe extraneous spaces and other unwanted informa-tion. You may need to change the degree and typeof editing, depending on your data structure andcontent.

Now that the main editing is complete, all that isneeded is to add the header details (Figure 5 inrespect of the birth GEDCOM) and the trailer [0TRLR] as the last line.

� Save the text file as a GEDCOM (.ged) fileOnce you have completed all the text editing and

added the header and trailer information, you needto save the text file as [Name].ged. In my case Inamed my birth text file �Kemble gedcom.ged�.When saving the file, Word provides a warning Ify[filename] may contain features that are notcompatible with text only format. Do you want tosave the document in this format? You just need toclick Yes.

� Import resultant GEDCOM file to TMGThe final stage is to import the resultant GED-

COM file to the appropriate Family Genealogyprogram � in my case to TMG. Within TMG selectFile, Import, Simple wizard, Next. Select GEDCOMv4, v5.5 (*.GED from the Import file type and presslocate. Select the appropriate folder in which the.ged file was saved and select the file. Next selectOpen, Next, Next and Finish and follow the instruc-tions for loading the data set.

This method of transferring data works with TMGand Family Tree Maker. The procedure describedabove for transferring birth data works also formarriage and death data and many other types ofdata, such as census, burial and address data. If anyGuild member would like further details, pleasecontract me at my home/e-mail address given below.Alternatively, a longer article, which included detailsof converting marriage and death records, can befound on the Guild�s website at http://www.one-name.org/members/articles.html

My thanks go to John Liddle and Teresa Pask,both TMG users. and to John Stark, Member 4068,who provided help and assistance in commentingon this article and testing out the methodology. ❍

CLIFF KEMBALLMember 3389168 Green LaneChislehurstKent BR7 [email protected]

Find Replace ^t[Tab] [Space] @I[Space] @I[No space] [Space]@[Space]INDI @[Space]INDI /[Space]Kemble /Kemble [Space]% ^p [Space] [Space] [Space] Keep repeating to take out all extraneous spaces ^p = Paragraph Mark ^t = Tab character (click �special� to find special characters)

Figure 3 � editing of the text file

0 @19721@ INDI 1 NAME Joseph Colin /Kemble/ 1 SEX M 1 BIRT 2 DATE OCT 1998 2 PLAC Colchester 2 SOUR @S1@ 3 DATA 4 TEXT Birth source: 4691dd63C073 2 2 QUAY 2 1 NOTE Mother�s maiden name: Kemble

Figure 4 � the text file after editing

0 HEAD1 SOUR ACCESS2 VERS V 9.0.27202 NAME Cliff Kemball3 ADDR 168 Green Lane, Chislehurst, Kent2 DATA Access Kemble Database3 DATE September 20041 DEST TMG1 DATE 12 September 20041 FILE MASTER DATABASE1 GEDC2 VERS 5.51 CHAR ANSI0 @S1@ SOUR1 AUTH Cliff Kemball�s Indexes1 TITL Index of National Archives births

Figure 5 � header details


rowsing through the Guild�s list of regis-tered surnames, one is struck by thebewildering number of spelling variants.They seem so unpredictable that the

temptation is to put them all down to randomchance. During a one-name study, however, weoften come across a point in time or space when aparticular variant becomes fixed. What can wededuce about the processes bringing this about?Why does one particular spelling triumph in certainplaces at certain times?

The following is an attempt to make an �orderly�classification of spelling variations, whileacknowledging that we are dealing here with anarea where several processes may be at work at oneand the same time and place. Such changes may begrouped into two main categories � �internallyinduced� and �externally induced� � according towhether they are caused by the preferences of thename-bearers themselves or the preferences of thepeople with whom they come in contact.

(1) Internally induced change In this category, we may include changes brought

about by the wishes of the name-bearers them-selves. Often this involves homonymie facheuse, aFrench term meaning �annoying similarity ofname�. It refers to the common phenomenonwhereby a word, through changes of pronunciationor meaning, comes to resemble something elsewhich has unfavourable connotations.

One thinks of the word �ass� (i.e. donkey) inmodern standard British received pronunciation(RP). It used to be the standard word for the animal

in question until the vowel in all words ending in -ssand other fricative consonants became lengthenedand retracted further back in the mouth, a processwhich began in southern England about 1700. As RPis based on southern English, it became standard inwords like �grass� and �path�. Coincidentally, thosesame areas of England had also previously lost thepronunciation of �r� before consonants. The resultwas that �ass� and �arse� tended to cease to bedistinguished in normal speech if they followed therule. Hence, �ass� appears as an anomalous excep-tion to this phonetic change, as it still rhymes with�mass� rather than �grass�.

A possible example of homonymie facheuse isprovided by the varying fortunes of names contain-ing the element -BOTTOM over the past century (seetable below). Most of these names have declined,presumably because some of their bearers haveabandoned them. Only Higginbottom has held itsown, perhaps because the first element (HIGGIN-) is�semantically opaque� i.e. it does not have anyconnotation and, therefore, does not exacerbate theeffect of �-bottom�. It seems that verb (SHUF-FLE)+bottom is the worst case scenario for survival,followed by adjective (LONG)+ bottom, and thennoun (RAMS)+bottom faring slightly better. Some,of course, may have gone over to the spellingBOTHAM, as in the cricketer Ian Botham.

A variant of homonymie facheuse occurs wheretotal replacement of the original term takes placeto avoid unwanted vulgar connotations. An exampleis the replacement of �cock�, the male farmyardfowl, by �rooster� in American English and by thelengthened form, �cockerel�, in British English.

I came across one example by chance in thecourse of tracing a family named LOCKETT orLOCKITT in the parish registers of Ashill, Norfolk.This family�s name had been spelt in either of theseways for several generations prior to the 1870s.Then, in the course of only five years, they all wentover to the spelling, LOCKWOOD. What is interest-

ing about thisexample is that thechange can beobserved actuallytaking place in theregister, as in thefollowing marriageentry on October15 1875: John Lockit, shoe-maker (father JohnLockit, shoemaker)

Why do some surnamevariants become fixed?By Steve Tanner

IN the January�March 2004 Journal [Vol 8 Issue 5]our President, Derek Palgrave, described some ofthe difficulties associated with the multiplicity ofsurname spellings. In this article, Guild MemberSteve Tanner, who works in the Centre of AppliedLanguage Studies at Swansea University, gives asociolinguist�s view of surname variants.

NounVerbNounOpaqueAdjective

Grammaticalformation

SURNAME

BottomShufflebottomRamsbottomHigginbottomLongbottom

1901census796542203619612661

462258140616241576

UKinfo2003

UKinfo(+33%)*616344187421652101

Change(%)-10-36.5-8+9.5-2.1

* Assuming 33% not on electoral roll, under-18s, etc.

A possible example of homonymie facheuse involving -bottom names

and Elizabeth Ashby (father, Robert Ashby,labourer).

But the witnesses, the brother and sister of thebridegroom, both signed as Charles LOCKWOODand Elizabeth LOCKWOOD.

The following year, Charles, a baker, was marriedin the same church by the same vicar, the Rev Bar-tholomew Edwards, He was one of the longest-serving incumbents on record, dying a few weeksshort of his 100th birthday. He had known theparishioners concerned for half a century and usedthe old spelling for the main entry, evidently havingno truck with what he perceived to be an incorrect �even pretentious � innovation. He wrote LOCKITT,though the groom defiantly signed as LOCKWOOD.

By the time of the 1881 census five years later,despite the vicar�s rearguard action, all the num-erous LOCKI(E)TTS in and around Ashill had goneover to LOCKWOOD. Why? One can only assume thiswas a coordinated step by the whole family. Withmass education making headway in the 1870s, suchrural artisans could generally read and write. At thesame time, cheap printed editions of children�snursery rhyme books became popular. Perhapsyounger members of the family had been tor-mented at school with the rhyme...

Lucy Lockett lost her pocket Kitty Fisher found it Not a penny was there in it But a ribbon round it

...and determined to be rid of a name which hadbecome a source of ridicule .

A variant on this theme occurs where, while thesurname in question may have no unpleasantconnotations, it is felt to be too common, andattempts are made to make it �posher�. Thus, wefind SMYTHE for Smith and the various extra final�e� surnames like BROOKE, BROWNE, COOKE, etc.

One might expect spelling variants which avoid,or at least lessen, an unwanted connotation to havegained preference during the last century, with massliteracy. However, the following example shows thatthis is not necessarily the case :

(2) Externally-induced changeIn this category we may place changes occurring

through the speech habits of people other than thename-bearers themselves, i.e., by those they come incontact with. These fall under several sub-categoriesand may be exemplified in my one-name study of

HEMPSALL and variants. This name probably orig-inated in a place-name, Hempshill, near Notting-ham, representing an Anglo-Saxon personal name�Hemma� or �Hemmed�, plus �Hill�, with an epent-hetic medial P added for ease of pronunciation. Theplace from which the name originated had ceased

to be known outside its immediate area soon afterthe main period during which surnames becamehereditary in the East Midlands area (1300�1400).

We may distinguish two sub-categories of exter-nally induced change affecting HEMPSALL:

(a) Reetymology. This refers to the re-analysis of the parts of the

surname into units other than those of its originaletymology. This often happened when a familymoved into an area where the locals were unfam-iliar with the surname. Thus, the name HEMPSALLwhen its bearers moved into the Lindsey area ofLincolnshire in the late 1600s and early 1700s tendedto be re-interpreted as HEM(P)SWELL by clerks andvicars who were familiar with two local place-names, the twin villages of Hemswell and Harpswell,15 miles north of Lincoln.

Interestingly, this particular reetymology had notoccurred earlier in that area, despite the fact thatthere are a number of records of HEMPSALL familiesin the North Lincolnshire area as early as the mid-1500s. This may be because Hemswell, the place inquestion, was then HELMESWELL, and hence lesslikely to be confused with HEMPSALL.

By contrast, across the Trent in North Notting-hamshire, where HEMPSALLs also moved north intonew territory, vicars and scribes frequently opted forthe variant HEMPSEED. Viewed from our modernstandpoint, this at first sounds like an attempt athumour � as if it were a kind of deliberate hom-onymie facheuse. One recalls the use of �hayseed�as a term of scorn for a country bumpkin.

Yet it may not have been so. Hemp was an impor-tant part of the regional economy and may not havehad pejorative connotations. After the drainage inCharles I�s reign of the Isle of Axholme, on thenorthern boundary of the HEMPSALL homeland, alarge acreage was given over to the cultivation ofhemp � not for marijuana, but for its fibre used inmaking sacks. Thus, an association of an individualwith such a vital commodity might have been almosta compliment or, at least, a neutral designation.

Only one other -SALL name was similarly affectedin the area: LOVERSALL occasionally became LOVER-SEED. One hesitates to imagine what was theunderstood meaning in this case. An alternative explanation might be the presenceof some incumbents from Scotland, where the nameHEMPSEED had an independent origin. However,

significantly, this variant died out among itsbearers by the late 19th century. After all,who would want to be called after food forcage-birds? (b) Influence of similarly-composed namesThe above variant, HEMPSEED, may also fall

into this category, as it may well have arisen as areaction to the names HEM(P)STALK andHEM(P)STOCK, both of which were common inNottinghamshire in the same general area asHEMPSALL. While it does not appear to be the casethat any HEMPSALLs went over to HEMPSTALK/


SURNAME

GiggleGiggal

1901census103119

UKinfo20034958

6577

2003(+33%)

-36.5-35.5

Change%


HEMPSTOCK, or vice versa, the two names do seemto have influenced each other. Indeed, there aretwo cases of intermarriage between Hempsalls andHempstalks or Hempstocks, in 1722 and 1890. Thefact that HEMPSTALK/HEMPSTOCK provided a clearexample of a �semantically transparent� secondsyllable put pressure on the name HEMPSALL toadopt a more definite meaning, even a spuriousone.

As so many names like HEMPSALL end inunstressed syllables, there is a tendency for variationin the vowel. Thus, one finds HEMPSELL, HEMPSILL,HEMPSOLL and even HEMPSULL, all with or withoutthe �P�. The area where the present majorityspelling, HEMPSALL, became fixed was the centralNottinghamshire area. Here, there may well havebeen an influence from several place-names endingin -SALL, such as Kneesall, Kelsall and Bothamsall.

Long vowelThe first two of these were usually pronounced

with a full, long vowel, rhyming with �Paul�,whereas Bothamsall had the reduced vowel knownas �schwa� to phoneticians, rhyming with the lastsyllable of �castle�. HEMPSALL probably oscillated inpronunciation between these two possibilities, but,either way, the spelling tended to be fixed as -SALL.

Other -SALL names in Notts which may havemutually reinforced each other were: INKERSALLSOMSALL, UPSALL, SARSALL, KEMPSALL, BERDSALLBEARDSALL, BONSALL, BURSALL, HASSALL,CAMPSALL, LOVERSALL, ADENSALL and STANSALL.

By contrast, in the Lincolnshire villages of Saxilbyand Long Bennington, only 10 miles away on theother side of the Trent, two prolific families finallyfixed on HEMPSHALL in the late 1800s. Here, itseems that the prominent landed estate of Tatter-shall, and the surname associated with it, may haveprovided a model. In both cases, there may havebeen a partial reetymology, interpreting �sall� as�s+hall�. Thus Tatter�s Hall, so Hemp�s Hall.

Alternatively, the name MARSHALL � particularlycommon in this area, with several Hempsalls marringMarshalls � may have been a strong influence.Descendants of these families became so numerousthat in areas where both were quite common, EastNottinghamshire and the Lincoln area, individualswere pulled this way and that in a linguistic tug-of-war persisting into the 20th century.

I can remember my mother, a HEMPSALL born in1909, considering HEMPSHALLs an inferior breed!She objected to being occasionally called Hempshall,whether in speech or writing, saying it was a�drunkard�s pronunciation�. Yet the HEMPSHALLsin the 21st century, though in a minority, are hold-ing their own, with 176 HEMPSHALLs on theelectoral roll in 2003 as opposed to 408 HEMPSALLs.

Meanwhile, in the Gainsborough and Rotherhamareas, the spelling HEMPSELL or HEMPSHELL becamefixed among a small group of families in the 19thcentury. This may have reflected a desire to repre-

sent less ambiguously the neutral schwa vowel byavoiding the -SALL spelling, which could stand foreither Hemp-SAUL or Hemps�ll. �-SELL� was morelikely to be unambiguously pronounced �Hemps�ll�,which is, in fact, now the preferred pronunciation ofmost HEMPSALLs and HEMPSELLs. In the case of theRotherham HEMPSELLs, there may have been aninfluence from the large number of -SELL names inthe area, e.g. RUSSELL and MANSELL.

(c) Dialectical influence Surnames may share in the various sound changeswhich affect words in general. For instance, there isand has been for some time a tendency to insert a�glottal stop� (that constriction at the back of thethroat common in many parts of Britain in combina-tions like �I�ve got to�, where the first �t� isreplaced by a glottal stop). In HEMPSALL, the �P�generally is realised in speech as a glottal stop. Itcould well be that the absence of this feature incertain areas, such as the Lincolnshire fens, mayaccount for the variant HEMSELL, which becamefixed in the early 19th century in the Bourne area.Finally, one family in the Boston area opted forHEMSILL, of which there are still a few aroundtoday. These may have been similarly influenced bydialect or by analogy with BUSSILL, BISSILL, TRUS-SILL, TATTERSILL and MANSILL.

It is interesting to compare the rise and fall ofspelling variants over time. Pie charts in my ONScompare the proportions of the various spellings ofHEMPSALL between the IGI, the 1901 census onlineand the 2001 electoral roll. Of course, one is notcomparing like with like, since the IGI largely reflectsthe spelling of scribes other than the subjects them-selves, whereas the electoral roll is based on self-reporting in a fully literate society. Also, the IGIcovers a long period, so the chart reflects a roughaverage of the period 1600�1870, while the 1901online census notoriously contains a lot of errors.

However, the charts do hint at some trends whichmay hold true for other surnames. There seems tobe a trend for the more common variants toincrease their share of the total at the expense ofthe rarer ones. Thus, HEMPSALL and its nearest rival,HEMPSHALL, have both expanded, while the othershave lost out. This may be because individual fam-ilies have �corrected� their spelling through theinfluence of people in their area named with one ofthe two majority spellings. Or it may be becausethese minority spellings were never correct in thesense of being used by their owners, but simplyscribal errors .

I would be interested to hear from other one-namers who have subjected their names to similaranalysis to see if there are common trends. ❍

STEVE TANNERMember 4001Beili-glas, RhydargaeauCarmarthen SA32 [email protected]

AY I report that Member 1217 is stillusing a portable typewriter, ring bindersand shoe boxes? I remain in the samegroove I was in when I gave an address

to members of the Guild of One-Name Studies atNewquay, Cornwall, as part of the fifth BritishGenealogical Conference, on April 1 1990, entitled�At the Sign of the Three Black Lions: AnIntroduction to the Carews.�

I joined the Guild in 1988, perceiving that theremight be an application from someone else inter-ested in the name CAREW, but with less materialthan I held. Prior to that, I was on the List of One-Name Studies.

I have two charts, one which mentions all armi-gerous lines of Carew from the Domesday book tothe present, and another which traces the Bedding-

ton, Surrey, branch from the 14thcentury to its extinction. Informa-tion concerning these families wasgleaned over many years fromvolumes of State Papers, ecclesias-tical records, county record officesand numerous libraries, includingLambeth Palace. The material fills

13 bulging ring binders covering 32 generations ofthe Carew descendants of Walter FitzOther. I havenot attempted to count the individuals.

CardsMore than 8,000 non-armigers, including my own

ancestors, are recorded on cards filling six shoeboxes. Until the end of the 18th century variantspellings such as CAREWE, CARO, CAROO, CARRO,CARROWE and CARUE are treated as if they wereCAREW, cards being filed by alphabetical order ofChristian name and then by date order in a series offive boxes.

The sixth box contains post-1799 variant spellings,aliases, double-barrelled names and persons bearingCarew as a forename, these latter being filed byalphabetical order of surname. I am listed hereunder my maiden name of Buckett.

Each card in all six boxes indicates the geographi-

cal file containing details of that person. These filescover the UK, Ireland and many other countries,including Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada,West indies and, not least, Newfoundland, whereCarew is the dominant surname.

I do not extract names from telephone directoriesand I no longer cull birth and marriage records fromthe Family Records Centre. I make an occasional visitthere to extract recent Carew deaths which enablesme to process what I know about those persons,inserting them on their appropriate pedigrees. Iseldom find time to do this, however.

New DNBWork of mine has been made available to the

Mary Rose Trust, to the compilers of the new Dic-tionary of National Biography and to Burke�sPeerage, the latter in order to correct and amplifytheir coverage of the earlier generations of theCarew Baronets of Haccombe, this with the consentof the present head of the family.

I neither seek nor accept remuneration. I reply toall enquiries, irrespective of return postage beingsupplied. Overseas enquirers are seemingly ignorantof International Reply Coupons and several to whomI have sent copious material failed to render thanks.

In September 1999 my �The Origins of theCarews: An update� appeared in the Genealogists�Magazine. It brought enough post to keep me busyfor weeks!

My own ancestors of the name appeared inBristol in time to be head-counted as Papists in thelate 18th century. The head of the family was acooper by trade. He had no doubt gone to Bristol,then a thriving port, in order to find work. Thelikelihood is that he and his wife had crossed by theferry from Waterford. ❍

JOAN RICHARDSONMember 12173 Sycamore CloseCourt RoadMottinghamLondon SE9 4RD


Using a portable typewriter, ring binders and shoe boxes to record 32 generations of CarewsBy Joan Richardson

WE are pleased to bring you some morecontributions from Guild members who answered thechallenge to tell us how they are happily running aone-name study without the aid of a computer

Journal of One-Name Studies, October�December2004 13

Original records and hand-written familytrees were basis of my studyBy Eddie Pollikett

S ONE of the Guild�s earlier members(Number 1013) I have, over 28 years,collated 47 separate family trees basedupon an original entry for our adopted

surname from one of the earliest Court Rolls, whereI found, in 1234, a Ralph POLECOT.

I regard him as the family �Godfather� who wasto spawn over 1,000 descendants to date. My ownsurname is one of four main variants to the originalwhich, like many others, was formed around theend of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries� a time when Edward I introduced his Act throughparliament giving his male subjects the right tochoose a surname for their families.

In my earliest begin-nings, I did not have aclue where to start, so Ijoined an evening classin genealogy. I learnt alot, but one particularremark the tutor madehas always stuck in mymind: �There are noshort cuts in familyresearch.� He also toldus to make every effortto view originallyrecorded facts first,before referring to those which have been extractedby someone else.

He meant, of course, at the time, the collection ofMormon records available on microfiche (the IGI),material in books and other extracted sources.Today we have the Internet to assist us, carryingworldwide information � but all of it is reproducedfrom those originally penned records made duringthe course of hundreds of years and, with respect,not always with 100 per cent accuracy.

Internet research has been with us only a fewyears and it will take a long time before everythingis available in this medium. I am so pleased I tookthe advice of my tutor way back in 1975 and canhonestly say that my extractions have always beentaken from first-hand information at record offices.A greater portion of these came from St. Catherine�sHouse in central London, where all GRO births,marriages and deaths were formerly indexed. Theseare now at the Family Records Centre at Islington.

Two minutes� walk away was the census searchroom off Chancery Lane and a five-minute walk sawme in Somerset House at Aldwych, where all pro-bated wills and finalised divorce papers used to beheld. Wills were � and still are � a valuable tool forextending family lines, for they not only contain full

details of the deceased person but can show benefi-ciaries and sums or chattels left to them,relationship to the deceased and, if lucky, addresses.Wills are on record from the mid-13th century andare, as we know, a gold mine for genealogists.

Another �must� visit is to the Public Record Office(now The National Archives) at Kew. Any geneal-ogist with military interests can gather informationon those serving their country, while transportationlists to the colonies and passenger lists of emigrantsare also kept there and much, more more.

Next came the parish registers, which can takeone back to 1538, though there are many gapsbecause some records were destroyed by rats, waterand civil disturbances. From there I was able toreach further back to 1234 through the Court Rolls.

TreesMy family trees were all hand-written at first.

Having so many eventually, I then proceeded to thelaborious task of typing them all out on my trustyIBM electric typewriter to give tidiness to them.Three years ago I upgraded them through one of mydaughters who used her computer to make them alluniform. These are now in a compact binder and,for all-time safe keeping, I have willed everything Ihold on our family histories to the Guild.

My extractions are mostly in one book as I tookthem down. I call it my �Bible of extractions�. I alsohold around 100 certificates, which were purchasedto establish a given line, and six lever arch filescontaining all correspondence sent and receivedover 28 years. They, too, are numbered. I use 5� by3� cards to record all information located on those1,000-plus people, all kept in the proverbial box. Callme old-fashioned, but it works for me.

My original surname, POLLICOTT, derives fromtwo hamlets in Buckinghamshire called Upper andLower Pollicott. My earliest ancestor recorded in1234 was living not more than four miles from thesehamlets and, I believe, chose the place name as hisnewly bestowed surname. These hamlets werementioned in the Domesday Book. They havechanged little over the years and there are nolandmarks by which they can be recognised.

We Polliketts are fairly rare, too � fewer than 300of us worldwide. ❍

EDWARD C POLLIKETTMember 101342 Beresford RoadChandlers FordEastleighHampshire SO53 2LY


FINALLY, after months of anticipation, the SecondEdition of the National Burial Index has beenreleased and early indications on the Guild Book-stall suggest that the publisher, the Federation ofFamily History Societies, has a major success on itshands.

So, what�s it like? Is there something in it for you?Is it worth its cover price of £45? Is there a marketstall where you can buy it much more cheaply? Orcan you get it on the internet? Can you get yourfriend with a CD burner to run you off a copy? I�vebeen fortunate to be one of those who have beenable to get an early copy and so I�d like to give youan honest appraisal (well, hopefully), based on myadmittedly early reactions.

First impressionsI�m impressed! This is a beautiful piece of packag-

ing � if the FFHS wants to encourage sales, this isdefinitely the way to do it.Member societies who havecontributed to this productshould be pleased. When youwork a bookstall you learnthat, while you may not beable to tell a book by itscover, it certainly helps to sellit. The four CDs that make upNBI 2 are neatly containedwithin what I can only call a"wrap", unfolding like aswiss roll. The wrap is then encased in a sturdy box,about the same size as a decent novel.

What�s in it? That�s the thing � lots of stuff.Thirteen million burials, if you read the blurb. That�sa heck of a resource, and a lot more than theprevious version. But it�s worth emphasising that,while that�s a lot, it�s still just an index, not theburial records themselves, despite what it says onthe box.

I have to confess to a little impatience with thetitle. A National Burial Index it is not � sorry. Anumber of Welsh counties are not represented atall. Oh, and in case it slipped your notice, this is anindex to burials in England and Wales � not a Scot-tish or Irish record in sight. Perhaps, understandably,the counties are also not uniformly represented.There�s a splendid set of Yorkshire West Ridingentries, which I�m sure will please Roy Stockdill [He’sjust jealous! � Editor] but Middlesex, where so manyof my immediate ancestors were buried, is pitifullyrepresented with just 15,000 burials, and there areeven fewer Hampshire and Devon entries. Beforeyou buy, please make sure you check the county liston the back of the box.

InstallationTo be able to use NBI 2, you�ll need to install the

NBI Viewer program. I found this to be quitestraightforward, following the instructions insidethe opening layer of the �swiss roll�. Don�t expect

things to run automatically from the CD, though;you�ll have to find and run the program calledsetup.exe, on disk 1.

Once I�d installed the software, I had a smallproblem. Each time I started up the NBI Viewerprogram, I was presented with the message: �Pleaseinsert NBI Disk 1, select OK and restart application�,even when disk 1 was already inserted. I ejected theCD and re-inserted it. Same thing! Then I realisedthat I should wait for the little green light on the CDdrive to go out before I clicked on OK, and re-started the NBI Viewer. The software clearly had toread something from the CD to be able to continue� this must be the famous copy protection we�veheard about. I had to go through this procedureevery time I started to use NBI 2. I found this veryclumsy and it�s a pity. Being a bit bloody-minded, Iput the copy protection to the test and tried to copythe annoying disk 1. I failed!

Once you get into it, there�sa familiar feel to the NBIViewer. Ah, yes � It�s a SteveArcher program! And users ofNBI 1 will be immediately athome, as the buttons seem tobe identical. The records are arrangedchronologically: disk 1 coversthe 16th century to 1760, disk2 has records from 1761 to1825; disk 3 has 1826 to 1860;

and disk 4 contains entries from 1861 to 2003 (yes,really!). Unfortunately, this makes for lots of eject-ing and inserting, especially if you�re looking forancestors in the years covered by several CDs.

But there�s a facility to copy the CDs to your harddrive, and that seemed like a good idea. From themenu I selected Tools > User Setup and then clickedon Help to find the instructions. I needed about twogigabytes to copy all the data, but the disk copyutility was easy to use and it was much quicker tomove through the years after that. I really recom-mend that you do this, assuming you have the spaceon your hard drive, of course. But I still had to insertdisk 1 into the CD drive every time I wanted to startup NBI 2. Blimey! Even Bill Gates isn�t this paranoid!

SearchingWhen you start it up, NBI 2 looks very plain

indeed and, although there�s a menu bar with a fewoptions, there�s really only one significant function:Search. I did the obvious thing. I clicked on theSearch button (you can also use F2) and typedBENBROOK into the Surname field of the Searchwindow. Wow � 256 entries! What? Just BEN-BROOKs? Well, actually, no. I�d left the option setthat included variants, so I got BENBRICK andBAMBROOKE, etc. Still � doing it again gave me 23entries, even with the exact spelling.

Now, I know BENBROOK is pretty unusual, but Icould have expected more than 23 entries over a


465-year span. The answer is, of course, that not allthe BENBROOKs are there. I can�t, of course, expectfull coverage (see my later remarks) and heck, whereelse could I get all this data collected together? Iwent back to the list of my variants.

As an ex-actor, I was instantly attracted to MaryHathaway BANBROOK. Was there � perhaps, atenuous link with Shakespeare�s wife? Both werefrom Warwickshire, after all. A double-click on thatentry brought up a window with the details of therecord and showing the distribution of all theBENBROOK variants, with a spot for Mary Hathawayhighlighted in red. Clicking on some of the yellowspots nearby revealed other local burials spanningseveral hundred years � further confirmation thatthe likely source of my surname is the Warwickshire/Staffordshire border. One thing�s for sure, I�m goingto have to explore Mary Hathaway BANBROOKsome more! That alone makes NBI 2 valuable to me.

Backwards stepOne thing that seems to have gone backwards

from NBI 1 is that you can now only display 500entries at a time, rather than the previous limit of2,000. When you have a body of records, it�s pro-bably a good idea to sort your list into some sort ofsequence, and clicking on the heading at the top ofeach column will use that data to sort on. If youneed to sort on, say, date within county, use theMulti-Column Sort button:

Perhaps the most perplexing part of this resourceis in the Unique Surnames Search tab of the Searchwindow. What this reveals is that there are lots of �

and I mean well over a thousand � surnames thatbegin �...�. In other words, entries that have beendifficult to transcribe. Make sure you examine theseentries carefully, using whatever criteria you need.And by the way, you can use the usual wildcards, *for zero or more characters, ? for a single character,when you search for a surname.

Exporting dataIt�s all very well looking at all this data, but you�ll

want to do something with it. You have two choices:you can print a report or save the information inanother format ("exporting"). You can choose toprint all your entries if you have a short list, but youmight like to use the tagging feature to mark allthose entries that you�d like to report.

One of the strengths of NBI 2, though, is that youcan export your chosen entries to a GEDCOM for-mat, a .dbf (dBASE III) file or a table in an html(web) page. Now, that is what I call useful.

So � is it worth £45? For some, of course, this issimply a must-have item (bless them), but it reallydepends on your expectations and how you intendto use it, not to mention the depth of your pockets!The problem I find with a data-on-CD product is thatit�s very much like buying a haystack in the desper-ate hope that your needle is somewhere in it.

Let me offer some tentative analysis. Between1538 and, say, 1900 there were perhaps 15 genera-tions who lived and were buried. Across all thosegenerations, the average population of England andWales would have been � shall we say 10 million?

If you accept my figure, this means that over thatperiod there would have beensomething like 150 millionburials. If that is so, then NBI 2is an index to less than 10% ofthe total, which means youhave no better than a 1 in 10chance that you�ll find yourancestor. This doesn�t seem tobe good value to the casualfamily historian. But to a one-namer I thinkthis is an attractive proposi-tion. Ten per cent of all thepeople with my study name injust one purchase? None ofthat endless trawling throughcounty-based indexes, just incase I come across that specialsurname? It sounds like good valueto me, especially as I shalldiscount it to members. I,therefore, have no hesitationin recommending NBI 2 toyou. ❍

� HOWARD BENBROOK is theGuild’s Bookstall Manager.

A view of the NBI 2 screen showing the results of a search for Benbrook andvariants, with an individual record for Mary Hathaway Banbrook in detail

urname mapping is a valuable tool for the one-namer. Not only does it show clearly thoseparts of the country which call for his or herdetailed attention, but it often gives clues as

to the origin of the surname in question.1 If the surname is mapped more than once over a

period of time, the pattern of any migration can beeasily made out. Finally, the mapping of the differentvariants of the surname in question can show strikingregional differences, which may sometimes be relatedto local variations in pronunciation.

One major problem is being sure that one has ascomplete a sample of the surname as possible, prefer-ably at one point in time. The International

Genealogical Index has been used for mapping butsuffers from the fact that parishes are only variablyrepresented both in place and in time.

The GRO Indexes, especially those of births, shouldlend themselves well to surname mapping by registra-tion district. However, by their very nature they are notable to give true point prevalences, although they willgive very informative incidences over set periods oftime.

Modern telephone directories are unreliable as anindex of surname prevalence, as in the past telephoneownership was not universal and also as nowadays moreand more people elect to be ex-directory.

1881 best sourceThe 1881 census is the best source of surnames for

mapping, as the data is readily available, virtuallycomplete and reflects a single point in time. Thisis now particularly true with the publication ofSteve Archer�s British Surname Atlas program,which uses the 1881 census figures and allowsany surname to be mapped by county or PoorLaw Union. Other censuses may become usefulsources in the future as electronic transcriptsbecome available. Electoral rolls for the whole of the UnitedKingdom are published annually by i-CD Publish-ing as UK-Info Disks. Surnames and their variantscan be easily extracted and counted. In theory,these numbers should represent the total peopleover 17 years of age in the UK in a given yearwith a particular surname. This statement wasprobably reliable until recently, when it has beenpossible for a person to be on the electoral rollbut to request his or her name not to appear inthe published lists. However, limiting usage tothe electoral rolls before 2002 should avoid thisproblem.

Advantages Mapping for surnames extracted from theelectoral rolls can be by county or by postcode.Postcode mapping has definite advantages... � The postcode is always given for every entry,whereas the county is often not recorded. Itcould be ascertained from the town or city, butthis would be time-consuming and, since reor-ganisation of county boundaries in 1974,metropolitan areas have been designated andmany counties are now very different frombefore that date. Yorkshire for example is dividedinto North, West and South sectors which bear

little relationship to the old North, West and EastRidings.

� Another advantage is that the populations inpostcode areas tend to be much more uniform than thewidely differing populations of the various counties.

To explore these considerations further, I have looked

at my Heppenstall and Variants One-Name Study. I hadpreviously extracted the figures for the surname andvariants in the 1881 census. I obtained the 1881 censuspopulation figures for each county in the whole ofGreat Britain from the 1881 House of Commons Parlia-mentary Papers2,3. This then allowed me to calculate theprevalence per million population of Heppenstalls andVariants (�Heps�) and the Branwell indices1 for eachcounty.

The results are shown in Table 1, far left. The grandtotal of all Hepenstalls and variants in the 1881 census

was 1,291 in a total national population of 29,875,026.Due to space reasons, it was not possible to publish thefull table, so only those counties where Heps actuallyoccurred are shown. For all other counties, the figuresare zero. The Branwell index is the prevalence of a surname ina given area, divided by the prevalence in the wholecountry, and allows the prevalence of different sur-names to be compared. A Branwell index of <1 meansthe surname is less prevalent than the country averageand an index of >1 means it is more prevalent. For example, a Branwell index of 3 for a countymeans the surname is three times more prevalent inthat county than in the country as a whole. Figure 1shows a map of Great Britain with the counties coded inproportion to the prevalence of Heps. The greatestprevalence of Heps is clearly in the West Riding ofYorkshire � 405 per million population � with a sur-rounding penumbra (Durham 71, Yorkshire East Riding63 and Nottinghamshire 61 per million population) andlow prevalence elsewhere in the country.

Rogue results The relatively high prevalences in the Isle of Man andAnglesey probably represent �rogue� results as in theformer, three visitors, and in the latter, a single Hepfamily of six persons, occurred within very low popula-tion counties. The overall prevalence in Great Britainwas 43 per million population. These results support Dr George Redmonds� conten-tion that Heppenstall and variants are locative surnamesderived from Heptonstall, in the Calder Valley nearHalifax, with subsequent ramification particularly in theWest Riding of Yorkshire.4,5

I have recently extracted the figures for the surnameand variants from the 2001 electoral rolls, together withthe associated postcode districts. Total and under-18years of age population figures for postcode districts inEngland and Wales are given in the Geoplan PostcodeMarketing Directory6, from which it is easy to calculatepopulations of over-17-year olds in each postcodedistrict. From the data I calculated the prevalence permillion population of Heps and variants and Branwellindices for each postcode district (Table 2, page 18).

Figure 2 (page 18) shows a map of England andWales with the postcode districts coded in proportion tothe prevalence of Heps. The greatest prevalence of Hepswere in the postcode districts of Wakefield (1,152 permillion), Huddersfield (995), Halifax (675) and Sheffield(407) with a surrounding penumbra (Bradford 281,Harrogate 229, York 171, Leeds 169, Doncaster 167 andLincoln 151 per million).

The overall prevalence in England and Wales was 71per million population. This is higher than the figureobtained from the 1881 census and is partly explainedby the exclusion of Scotland where Heps are veryinfrequent, but must also represent a genuine increasein both the absolute numbers and relative proportion ofHeps in the country as a whole.

As well as showing the West Yorkshire hotspots, the2001 prevalence map demonstrates a more generalised

16 Journal of One-Name Studies, October�December 2004 17Journal of One-Name Studies, October�December 2004

Modern mapping of your ONS surnameby postcode compared with mapping

from 1881 census data

By Dr DavidHeppenstall

Mellor

County Heps Population Heps/million Branwell

population index

Yorkshire West Riding 883 2175134 405 9.4

Anglesey 6 50964 117 2.7

Durham 62 867586 71 1.6

Yorkshire East Riding 23 365028 63 1.5

Nottinghamshire 24 391984 61 1.4

Isle of Man 3 53492 56 1.3

Derbyshire 20 461141 44 1

Lancashire 136 3454225 39 0.9

Lincolnshire 15 469994 32 0.7

Leicestershire 10 321018 31 0.7

Warwickshire 17 737188 23 0.5

Worcestershire 7 380291 18 0.4

Cheshire 11 643237 17 0.4

Huntingdonshire 1 59614 17 0.4

Sussex 8 490316 16 0.4

Northumberland 6 434124 14 0.3

Middlesex 33 2918814 11 0.3

Kent 10 977585 10 0.2

Somerset 3 469010 6 0.1

Yorkshire North Riding 2 346147 6 0.1

Hampshire 3 593487 5 0.1

Angus/Forfarshire 1 268653 4 0.1

Glamorganshire 2 511672 4 0.1

Northamptonshire 1 272524 4 0.1

Midlothian/Edinburghshire 1 388649 3 0.1

Essex 1 575930 2 0

Surrey 2 1435842 1 0

Table 1 � the 1881 census of Britain, with the actual numbers ofHeppenstall and variants, total county populations, Heppenstalland variants per million head of population, and Branwellindices by county, ordered by prevalence

Figure 1 � 1881 census map illustrating the prevalenceof the surname Heppenstall and variants per millionpopulation by county. Key shows prevalence groups,with corresponding Branwell indices in brackets

diffusion of people with the Hep and variantssurname than in 1881. In the 1881 census 30 of the53 counties in England and Wales were without asingle Hep, but in 2001 only nine of the total of104 postcode districts in England and Wales werewithout one.

In conclusion the mapping of surnamesobtained from pre-2002 electoral rolls plottedby postcode district seems to be a satisfactoryway of looking at current surname distributionsin England and Wales and complements theinformation shown on maps obtained by usingthe 1881 census data plotted by county or PoorLaw Union. ❍

References1. Rodgers, Colin (1995), The Surname Detec-

tive: investigating surname distribution inEngland, 1066�present day. Manchester University.

2. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers1881, vol 96: Census of England and Wales, andthe Islands in the British Seas on 4th April 1881.

3. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers1881, vol 96: Census of Scotland and its Islands on4th April 1881.

4. Redmonds, George (1973), English SurnameSeries: Yorkshire West Riding. Phillimore

5. Redmonds, George (1992) Yorkshire SurnameSeries Part Two: Huddersfield and District. Print-shop.

6. Geoplan Postcode Marketing Directory(1996) Volume 1, First edition. Geoplan.

AcknowledgementsHarry Wykes kindly provided a bitmap image of

Britain showing the historiccounties. The staff of Notting-ham Central Library gavevaluable advice on sources forthe population figures used inthis study.

DAVID H MELLORMember 3823

2 Bromley RoadWest Bridgford

Nottingham NG2 [email protected]


Postcode District Heps Population Heps/million Branwell

>17 years >17 years X1000 population index

WF Wakefield 417 362 1152 16.3

HD Huddersfield 181 182 995 14.1

HX Halifax 77 114 675 9.6

S Sheffield 406 998 407 5.8

BD Bradford 106 377 281 4

HG Harrogate 22 96 229 3.2

YO York 66 381 171 2.4

LS Leeds 91 540 169 2.4

DN Doncaster 91 544 167 2.4

LN Lincoln 29 192 151 2.1

FY Blackpool 32 222 144 2

OL Oldham 38 332 115 1.6

WN Wigan 27 234 115 1.6

DL Darlington 26 267 97 1.4

SG Stevenage 26 267 97 1.4

WR Worcester 18 195 92 1.3

SK Stockport 40 461 87 1.2

CH Chester 15 190 79 1.1

TS Cleveland 35 442 79 1.1

CW Crewe 16 212 76 1.1

HR Hereford 9 118 76 1.1

BB Blackburn 25 349 72 1

PE Peterborough 40 574 70 1

BL Bolton 18 274 66 0.9

PO Portsmouth 38 574 66 0.9

SR Sunderland 13 203 64 0.9

Left: Table 2 � England andWales 2001 electoral rolls:Heppenstall and variantsaged over 17 years, totalpopulation of postcodedistrict over 17 years,Heppenstall and variants permillion population andBranwell indices by postcodedistrict ordered byprevalence. Only thosedistricts with an index figureof 0.9 and over are shown

Figure 2 � England and Wales 2001 electoral rolls:prevalence of the surname Heppenstall and variants permillion population by postcode district. Key showsprevalence groups with corresponding Branwell indicesin brackets. For clarity, London and its environs areshown enlarged and displaced at the bottom of the map


History and development ofthe Guild from its early days By Derek A Palgrave, President

HE CONCEPT of concentrating on the studyof a single surname is not entirely new butthe techniques now adopted by practi-tioners in this field are radically different

from those employed, say, 170 years ago. I am sure Robert Palgrave (1812�1841), who was

probably the first to look into the origins of thePalgraves, would have found progress a great dealmore tedious. Nevertheless, he accumulated suffi-cient genealogical data about various bearers of hissurname to inspire his brother, Thomas, to petitionfor a grant of Armorial bearings. The College ofArms asked for more evidence, which resulted in acomprehensive investigation by a local antiquarianin Norfolk and Rouge Croix Pursuivant. Theirresearch became a one-name study1 which ayounger brother,Charles Palgrave, con-sidered worthy of pub-lication in 1878.

The Palgraves wereby no means alone. InStaffordshire, the RevCharles Swynnertonproduced a number ofarticles and papers dur-ing the 1870s, featuringthe Swinnertons, whichlater were published in part of Volume VII of Collec-tions for a History of Staffordshire.

In the United States in 1892, Francis P Rathbonelaunched a 16-page monthly magazine called theRathbone Family Historian. This ran for only 30issues but was revived by descendants in 1991. Sincethen there have been many other U.S. initiatives2,especially from the late 1930s onwards. Two or threedecades later there were corresponding develop-

ments in the UK, with newsletters and magazinesfrom the Butlers, Filbys, Olivers and Higginbottoms3.At the same time, a more general awareness offamily history was beginning to emerge.

Genealogical Societies were set up at CambridgeUniversity and in Birmingham, Manchester andNorwich. Those responsible included people likeDon Steel and Fred Markwell, whilst in CanterburyCecil Humphery-Smith had founded the Institute tofoster the study of Genealogy and Heraldry. By theearly 1970s the seeds of future co-operation hadbeen sown. There was a proposal to hold the Inter-national Congress of Heraldic and GenealogicalSciences in England in 1976, so clearly the time wasripe for interested parties to support this initiative.A major conference was arranged on June 8 1974 toestablish a Federation of Family History Societies.There were 11 founding societies, including at theoutset representatives of one-name studies.

SupporterA strong supporter was the Swinnerton Society,

so ably represented by Iain Swinnerton, who wasalso President of the Birmingham and Midland SFGHand was elected the first Chairman of the Federa-tion. He subsequently approached several otherone-name societies to seek their involvement.

By 1977 one-third of the members of the FFHSwere one-name societies, so a sub-committee wasset up of Iain Swinnerton, Michael Walcot andMichael Dalton, with myself as chairman, to addressthe needs of this significant group. Its duties werefirstly to generate a Register4 of surnames whichwere being comprehensively studied and, secondly,to draft some guidelines5 on forming and managinga one-name group. These tasks were accomplishedby the end of 1977.

Whilst we recognised that many family historianswere sympathetic to our approach, we were con-scious not all of them were keen to establish a one-name group. Many felt they might not be able todevote the necessary time to the organisationalaspects. The sub-committee were of the opinionthat the way forward might be to set up a newstructure to accommodate individual one-namers.

We proposed a conference, with a programme oflectures and discussions, to ventilate all the issueslikely to appeal to those involved in one-namestudies. We involved several other individuals withrelevant skills and knowledge, including Fred Filby,John Marfleet, Frank Higenbottam and EuniceWilson, and we chose the Grand Hotel at Leicesterover the weekend of May 13�14 1978, when we

DEREK PALGRAVE, President of the Guild ofOne-Name Studies, was among the foundermembers who met at a historic meeting inLeicester in 1978 to discuss establishing a bodyfor one-namers. Since those days, the Guild hasgrown and developed probably beyond thewildest imagination of its pioneers. This article isbased on Derek�s address to the Silver JubileeConference at Wyboston Lakes, Bedfordshire, inApril this year. We felt that, as we celebrate our25 years of existence, members who were notprivileged to hear Derek�s talk, including manywho have joined only recently, would like toknow something of the Guild�s early history.

Charles Palgrave, an earlypioneer of one-namers

attracted 66 participants to the first One-NameConference. We covered a wide range of topics fromHow To Start to Producing a Newsletter andOrganising a Gathering. There were formal andinformal discussions, culminating in a final session todiscuss Future Developments. This was very produc-tive and the outcome was a formal resolution,carried unanimously, to establish a Guild ofindividuals engaged in one-name research.

The meeting went on to set up a steering com-mittee, charged with drafting a constitution andarranging an inaugural meeting. Those proposedwere Fred Filby, Frank Higenbottam, David Rose,Pauline Saul, Hugh Cave and Sydney Brewin � whohad not gone to Leicester to attend the conferencebut was staying at the hotel and decided the meet-ing might be interesting!

Guild launchThe Guild of One-Name Studies was launched the

following year on September 1 1979 at the Collegeof St Mark and St John in Plymouth, where theFederation held its Autumn Council Meeting duringa conference hosted by the Family History Societiesof Devon and Cornwall. Within a few months,approximately 200 members had enrolled and in1980 the first Newsletter was circulated, edited byFrank Higenbottam, author of Running a FamilyHistory Bulletin on a Shoestring, assisted by DavidRose. Fred Filby became the first Chairman, alsotaking on the role of Registrar. Pauline Saul (nowPedersen) was Secretary and Sydney Brewin, whomwe discovered was a chartered accountant, filled theoffice of Treasurer.

One of the first priorities was to publish a fullyrevised version of the Register of One-Name Studiesand to define the criteria for inclusion. The commit-tee believed that to qualify for registration oneneeded to have a significant body of data relatingto the given surname and its variants. It was sug-gested that entries be extracted from currenttelephone directories, civil registration indexes ofbirths, marriages and deaths and national probate

indexes such as the Prerogative Courts of Canterburyand York.

Provided they had such information to hand,members would be better placed to deal withenquiries from the public who had consulted theRegister. In addition, there was a view thatenquirers needed to know if the individual regis-trant represented a one-name group, published aregular periodical, lived overseas or had some otherattribute limiting his or her study, so categories A, B,C, D and E were introduced � although many ques-tioned their usefulness.

A further priority was to provide opportunitiesfor members to meet on a regular basis. The supportfor the 1978 conference at Leicester suggested thevenue had been well chosen, so it became a naturalchoice for the Annual Confer-ence and AGM. However,with so many members livingin the Home Counties, Leices-ter was alternated withsuitable venues in London.Each year additional meetingswere arranged to coincidewith the Spring and Autumnconferences in conjunctionwith FFHS Council Meetings.This was not entirely satisfac-tory owing to the inevitablyoverloaded timetables at suchevents, so the Guild instigated a series of stand-alone regional meetings, the first of which was heldat Canterbury in Autumn 1982.

LogoOthers followed at venues around the country,

with the intention of providing every member ofthe Guild with an opportunity to attend a meetingwithin reasonable distance of his or her home.

As the proliferation of meetings far and wide wasraising the profile of the Guild, the committeeinvited members to design a distinctive logo. DavidPulvertaft came up with an outstanding design

incorporating a monkey-puzzle tree and the ace ofspades to emphasise the�one� in one-name. One ofits early applications was onthe cover of the Journal ofOne-Name Studies, whichreplaced the Newsletterwhich hitherto had beenduplicated by Fred Filby in abedroom. The Guild wenton to commission lapelbadges, ties, magazinebinders and even beer matsbearing this unique device.David Pulvertaft also offeredmembers the chance to adda scroll beneath the emblem


An early gathering of one-namers at Stourbridge, Worcestershire,in 1977. Leftto right: Michael Dalton, Royston Gambier, Derek Palgrave, Kenneth Grubb,Iain Swinnerton, Eunice Wilson, Fred Filby, Michael Grazebrook, DuncanHarrington and Michael Walcot

FRED FILBY, firstGuild Chairman

featuring their registered surname, so it could beused on their own headed notepaper.

The death of Frank Higenbottam in 1982 not onlydeprived us of an outstanding editor but high-lighted the perennial problem faced by allgenealogists in general and one-namers in particu-lar: the fate of their accumulated research data.Frank had already arranged for his collection to bedeposited at a library in Lancashire in the areawhere the Higginbottoms and variants had evolved.An appeal was launched within the Guild to providea suitable memorial for Frank, which eventuallyraised sufficient funds for the purchase of cabinetsto house such one-name material in the Society ofGenealogists Library.

Although Basil Labouchardiere volunteered totake on the task of editor for a few issues, it wasIain Swinnerton who faced the challenge during theperiod 1983�1986. The magazine more thandoubled in size over this period, increasing from 16to 36 pages. Clearly, this represented an expansionof the Guild�s publishing activity, reflecting theoverall growth of interest by its membership. Thiswas further enhanced by regular editions of theRegister and specialist publications such as SurnamePeriodicals by Joan Marker and Kelvin Warth, whichappeared in 1987, and Organising a One-NameGathering by Colin Ulph in 1988.

OutstandingDuring its first 10 years the Guild had made

outstanding progress. By 1989 it was well estab-lished with a membership around 1,500. At theTenth Anniversary Conference, held in Swindon, Iwas invited to make some predictions about itsfuture. It seemed clear membership would continueto expand and, hopefully, would include more fromoverseas. I expected our regional activities tobecome more ambitious and more of our memberswould participate in Guild functions.

We needed to share our expertise more widely byoffering specialist lectures to other organisations,publishing booklets derived from our practicalexperience in one-name research, and developingindexing projects with a more universal appeal. I feltthere were many other facets of one-name study wehad not addressed and that we ought to be collab-orating more effectively with linguists, lexicogra-phers and those in other academic disciplines. Mostof all, it was important we grasped the opportuni-ties open to us through improved and widelyavailable information technology.

I am very pleased to note that most of my predic-tions have come to pass. Our membership hascontinued to expand, regional events have prolifer-ated and one-name studies have been more widelypromoted through lectures and publications. Therole of regional and international representatives,which was encouraged by the efforts of KeithMeredith and others, has proved particularly benefi-cial. Our marriage and other indexing projects have

made considerable progress, especially as the webhas gained in importance following the appoint-ment of a data-processing manager and webmaster.In fact, the ease of communication via the Internethas been spectacularly successful within the Guild,which differs from most other family history socie-ties because its members never see one another atregular monthly meetings.

It has given me a great deal of personal satisfac-tion to have facilitated the Guild�s collaborationwith the lexicographers Patrick Hanks and FlaviaHodges. As a result of their attending one of ourAnnual Conferences, to explain the methodologybehind their new dictionary, followed by circulatinga questionnaire with our Journal, 300 hundred Guildmembers were able to make valuable contributionswhich were included in the final publication6.

We also collaborated with Professor GabrielLasker and Dr C G N Mascie-Taylor, whose interestwas in the distribution of surnames as indicators ofthe genetic structure of populations. The outcomeof this was an Atlas of British Surnames7. Morerecently there has been much interest in DNAcomparisons and their implications within one-namestudies. In a BBC series on Radio 4, presented byGeorge Redmonds in 2001, members of the Guildwere able to take part.

We have much to celebrate. Our members havepioneered the one-name approach to family history,tackling the problems of interpreting variant spell-ings and estimating the sizes of specific populations,including those of the high frequency surnames. Wehave devised convenient methods of recordinginformation, making contact with other bearers ofthe selected name and bringing them together.

The research methodology is now widely appre-ciated and the Guild is seen as an important strandin the network of institutions which foster familyhistory and its related subjects. It has been anhonour and a privilege to have been involved. ❍

References1 Palgrave Family Memorials � Palmer and Tucker, 18782 Howard Quarterly, USA, 1936; Shambaugh Families Newsletter, USA, 1940; Presgraves Reunion, USA, 1945; Babcock Bulletin, USA, 1953; Clay Family Quarterly, USA, 19663 J Butler Soc, UK, 1968; Filby Newsletter and Oliver Soc Mag, UK, 1969; Higginbottom Fam Bulletin, UK, 1970 4 Register of One Name Studies, FFHS, 19775 Forming a One Name Group, Derek A Palgrave, FFHS, 19776 A Dictionary of Surnames, Hanks & Hodges, Oxford Univ Press, 19887 Atlas of British Surnames, Lasker & Mascie-Taylor, Wayne State Univ Press, 1990

DEREK A PALGRAVE MA FRHistS FSGPresident, the Guild of One-Name Studies



HE GUILD�S regionalseminars are a way formembers to meet andexchange ideas. The

seminar held at the Nuthall Tem-ple Community Centre, nearNottingham, on Saturday, August23, lived up to expectations andprovided a welcome break fromthe Olympic Games. On this occa-sion, it also gave members fromother parts of the country theopportunity to see the Midlands.

The emphasis of the day wasupon different aspects of the useof computers in genealogy andone-name studies. The 50-plusmembers present included a crosssection of beginners and experi-enced users of computers.

Jeanne Bunting started the daywith a presentation of the differ-ent ways in which computers canbe used by one-namers. It wasamusing and even experiencedcomputer users picked up sometips from this presentation.

PackageJohn Hanson gave the next

presentation on �Genealogy Pro-grams for One-Name Studies�. It�sclearly impossible to cover allprograms in depth in one hour,yet he gave a good overview ofthe different features of pack-ages that should be taken intoaccount when deciding whichsoftware package to choose.

He used examples from twowidely used packages, Family TreeMaker and Family Historian,although he did mention andprovide examples from otherpackages.

As a user of Pedigree myself (ablue-screen DOS program) who

has not yet upgraded to a win-dows based program, I found thispresentation extremely helpful.

An excellent buffet lunch wasprovided and there was plentyleft for those who wantedseconds.

The session after lunch isalways my downfall! After anexcellent lunch, I have beenknown to rest with my eyesclosed at such events. HowardBenbrook drew the short strawfor the after-lunch presentation,when it is not always easy to

keep the attention of an audi-ence. However, there was noproblem on this occasion. For thebenefit of members who havenot met Howard, they will not beaware that in an earlier period ofhis life he was a thespian (oractor). This came over in his pre-sentation of �Census Sources andPitfalls Online�, using materialand examples provided by JeanneBunting.

I remained awake and learnedof a lot more reasons why people

cannot easily be found in the1901 census. I personally gave uptrying to trace my great-grand-father and his family in the 1901census online. I was confidentthat he had moved from Kent toWarwickshire by 1901, butresorted to a blanket search ofthe 1901 census microfiche forWarwickshire before I eventuallyfound him. I will try again onlineto see if I can trace him, tryingsome of the different types oferrors that Howard showed in hispresentation.

The final presentation of theday was �Service Records Online�by Helen Williams, another excel-lent presentation with examplesof the different websites. Helenprovided the audience with ahelpful handout of the sourcesmentioned in her presentation. Itwas not a definitive list but apersonal selection, which evenexperienced users would appre-ciate and gain ideas for furtherresearch.

Over the years I have attendeda number of regional seminarsand have found that it is oftenthe question-and-answer sessionsduring the various presentationsand at the end of the day thatare so helpful. I certainly pickedup some new ideas from thesesessions on the day.

On a personal note, all thepeople who gave their time toorganise and take part in theseminar, provide the buffet lunchand welcome mugs of tea andcoffee. should be congratulated.The location close to junction 26of the M1 and parking next tothe Centre also contributed to anexcellent day. ❍

Nottingham Computer Seminar lived up to expectationsBy Robert Golder

Helen Williams spoke on Service Records Online


N A lecture at the Federa-tion of Family HistorySocieties� LoughboroughConference, A Flight of Yes-

terdays, in August, Roy Stockdillasked whether one-namers werethe anoraks or aristocrats of fam-ily history. I have found thatmany of us start by collectingnames dates and places but quiteoften go off at a tangent toinvestigate something interestingthat we have uncovered in theprocess.

Often, putting the meat on thebones can be very rewarding andtransform you from an anorak toan aristocrat. This is the premiseof a rather special seminar we areholding at Swindon, Wiltshire, onSaturday, November 27. Thisevent is called the �UnusualStudies Seminar� and came aboutbecause of four such aristocrats.

Marjorie Moore will be talkingabout her Belaney One-NameStudy, reputedly one of the rarestnames in the country. This led herto the discovery of Grey Owl, aRed Indian who she describes as�an alcoholic, womaniser andcharismatic speaker�.

Jacobite glassGuild Member Dorothy Spottis-

woode discovered that there wasan �Amen Glass� in the Spottis-woode family. These glasses weremanufactured in Jacobite timesand often bore a toast to the�King o�er the Water.� DominicJohnson will tell Dorothy�s story.

Guy Grannum, usually to befound behind the help desk atthe National Archives at Kew,found he had slave-owningancestors in his family. Workingin just the right place to researchthem, he became an expert onwhat records were available and

what you could find out aboutthe slaves and their owners. Hewill share some of thisknowledge. He will also give anupdate on the National Archives.

Beryl Hurley, in the course ofher research into the Peapellname, came across a group ofrecords containing letters writtenby those living away from theirplace of settlement to apply forrelief. She is using them as thebasis for this lecture and we willbe privileged to be the first tohear it.

It promises to be a very inter-esting day, so make a note of thevenue and date: Gorse Hill BaptistChurch, Cricklade Road, Swindon,Wiltshire, Saturday, November 27.

Maps and Directories inChelmsford IN a completely new initiative, weare joining with the Essex Societyfor Family History for ourFebruary Seminar on February 192005, when the subject will bemaps and directories for familyhistorians.

Speakers will include EvelynCornell, Director of the HistoricalDirectories Project at LeicesterUniversity, and Clive Paine, wellknown author, broadcaster andlecturer in his native Suffolk, whowill talk about tithe, estate andtown maps.

Guild member David Hawgoodwill outline his project for prepar-ing tactile maps for the blind,John Hanson will describe Com-puter Maps and Mapping and Iwill tell you how you can usemaps and directories to help youfind census entries more easily. It

will be completely free of chargeto both societies and held in theLecture Theatre at the Chelms-ford Record Office. This is apurpose-built lecture theatrewith all the latest projectionequipment and there is an over-flow room with a video link.

Because of the limitation onnumbers, booking a place will beessential and to make it fair toboth societies, booking will openon December 13 2004 and noapplications will be processedbefore that date. Places will beallocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

There will be a form on theGuild website nearer the time. Goto: http://www.one-name.org/timetable.html and select "EssexSeminar".

Further details will be obtain-able by e-mailing me [email protected] orwriting to me (stampedaddressed envelope please) atFirgrove, Horseshoe Lane, AshVale, Surrey GU12 5LL. No moredetails will be available until thebeginning of December. Therewill also be a reminder in theJanuary Journal.

If this new venture proves suc-cessful, we will look to join withother societies for occasionalsimilar seminars in the future.

Right to moveseminars aroundthe country

The Computer Seminar inNottingham proved that we aredoing the right thing in trying tomove around the country. We dohave a few �groupies� who travelabout the country with us, but inthe main those attending werefrom within a 50-mile radius ofNottingham.

Seminars planned for thefuture in various parts of thecountry include Designing andCreating Web Sites, Occupationsand Unusual Sources, to mentionbut a few.

JEANNE BUNTINGChairman, Seminar Sub-Committee

Unusual Studies Seminar at Swindon in NovemberBy Jeanne Bunting


T OCCURRED to me as I satdown to write this articlethat I had just passed mythird anniversary. Three

years running the Guild Book-stall! Three years of loading andunloading, driving across thecountry, setting up and takingdown, counting, balancing andbanking the money, checking andordering more stock in time forthe next event. And all this morethan 20 times a year.

But there are joys, too, like thedelighted smile as you explain tosome stranger that their nameprobably has an origin in theheart of the English countryside,or that half-whispered remark asthey finally tear themselves away:�That�s fascinating!� When Iexamine all the scars I�ve gotfrom bashing those blue boxesabout, I have to wonder why I�mdoing this. But then I rememberall that help we must have givento novice genealogists, and Iknow there�s a point to it.

What�s new, what�s bigDo you really have to be told

what�s new and big? As trailed inthe last issue, the Big One thisseason has to be the Second Edi-tion of the National Burial Index.If you haven�t heard about italready, you must have been con-sulting the archives on Mars! Thenew NBI has over 13 millionrecords and I�m undercutting thecompetition by offering this £45article at a bargain basementprice of £36 to Guild members. Ifyou have the First Edition,though, you�ll need to contactFFHS Publications who willupgrade it for £25. If you missedit the first time round and you�dlike to purchase the Second Edi-

tion, then just fill in a Bookstallorder form. For my full review ofthe NBI, see page 14.

My ancestors were Cockneys,at least nine generations of EastEnders, so I am interested inanything about London sociology,history and geography. A coupleof issues ago I was enthusiasticabout a delightful little 1908tourist map of London on CD.Now, I am just as enthusiasticabout a pair of maps, also on CD,that take us further back in time.

Each CD is a reproduction of amap by an esteemed cartogra-pher of their time and displayswith your web browser. The firstis by John Rocque, who in 1746published a 26-inches-to-the-milemap that extended from HydePark in the west to Limehouse inthe east. This incredibly detailedmap has been lovingly repro-

duced and is available to mem-bers for £20.25.

The other is for mid-Victorianenthusiasts. created in 1862 byEdward Stanford. His map is alittle more extensive, from She-pherd�s Bush in the west toCanning Town in the east. This isanother lovely map, this time incolour, and reproduced at a highresolution, so you can see everydetail. Members� price is £24.75.

Price ListYou should find a new, pink

price list with this Journal. Thereare very few changes apart fromthe colour, but it�s my intention,unless there are no changes at all,to reissue the list with each newJournal to allow me to make

adjustments. You should destroythe old price list when you get anew one. The web pages will alsobe updated to reflect thechanges.

Where we�ve beenIt�s a bit quiet at this time of

year, and there are only a fewevents to report. The York FamilyHistory Fair was, as usual, verybusy, and it was even busier forus this year because I�d secured asite on the ground floor wherethere is more activity. On a per-sonal note, for the very first timeI met my second cousins, Peterand Joan, who I�d found aftersome Internet sleuthing. Wespent a pleasant evening in arestaurant, tying up all thosemissing family links. We�re still intouch, I�m pleased to say. A clash with an important date

in my domestic calen-dar meant I handedthe Bookstall over forthe Kent FHS OpenDay, but we were verybusy for the Guild�sComputer Seminar atNuthall, in Notting-hamshire. And wewere at the FFHS Con-ference, A Flight ofYesterdays, in Lough-borough, where I canreport that my firstefforts at selling thatnew edition of the NBI

were very successful.

Where we�re going... The season begins again in ear-nest and, as we go into theautumn, those blue boxes will seea lot of miles. Coming up:

� Guild Introductory Seminar,Longdon, Staffs, October 2� Warwickshire FH Fair,Leamington Spa, October 3� Hastings & Rother FHS FairHastings, Kent, October 10� Eastleigh FH Fair, Eastleigh, Hants October 17 � WSFHS Open Day, Woking, Surrey, November 6� Norwich FH Fair, Norwich, Norfolk, November 21� Wimborne FH Fair, Wim-borne, Dorset, November 28

John Rocque�s map of London, 1746


N conversation with mem-bers I know there arevarious reasons why youvalue your Guild member-

ship � some welcome the arrivalof the Journal with its varied mixof articles, some the convenienceof the one-name.org e-mailaddress, some the lively inter-changes, helpful advice andsources given on the Forum.

However I have rarely heardpraise for the esteem in whichthe Guild is held amongst thegeneral public, the wide publicitygiven to members� one-namestudies and the number of con-tacts received as a result. I haveeven heard it said: �I have neverreceived any contacts as a resultof my membership of the Guild�.

This surprises me. The Guildadvertises members� studieswidely, both through our websiteand the Register, which is circu-lated to all record offices andprincipal libraries in the UK andsome repositories in other coun-tries. If you are studying anuncommon name, it may be thelevel of enquiries you receive issmall. But can you be sure thatenquiries you do get have notbeen generated in some way as aresult of Guild publicity?

In the last year as the Guild�policeman�, I have receivedmore than 40 messages frommembers of the public complain-

ing about Guild membersnot replying to enquiries.Almost all the letters or e-mails start: �I found Mr Xwas studying the X name onyour website/in a copy ofyour Register at my localRecord Office/from enquiryat your Bookstall at a recentFH Fair..� They often con-tinue: �I wrote to Mrs Yenclosing a reply-paid

envelope. I understand from yourmembership terms that Mrs Y isobligated to reply to my query��

Many complaints are easilyresolved. Often the letter hasnever reached the member � mailseems to be increasingly goingastray � or the member haschanged their e-mail addresswithout informing us. Sometimesthe member has short-term prob-lems responding to enquiries: anextended holiday, working awayfrom home, an illness or familycrisis. When I know about these, Ican correspond with the complai-nant accordingly.

But occasionally the membernot only fails to respond to theoriginal enquiry but also fails torespond to my increasingly severeletters asking for an update. TheCommittee takes very seriouslythe reputation of the Guild andits members. We won�t hesitateto remove a registration if amember fails to respond toqueries from the public and GuildOfficers.

So don�t be aggrieved if youget a letter from me about acomplaint I�ve received. Usually itwill just be a misunderstandingthat it is easily resolved. Butplease don�t ignore such lettershoping they will go away � theywon�t!

Almost all members welcome

enquiries and would love to havemore. They provide the oppor-tunity to learn more about our�family�, swap information andextend our researches. All mem-bers, and the Guild as a whole,are judged by the response toenquiries. So there are a fewrules we should observe:

1. Respond to enquiriespromptly. If you are unable, forwhatever reason, to provide adetailed response immediately,send a �holding� reply,acknowledging receipt.

2. Don�t promise what youcan�t deliver. Don�t say you willprovide a full response within amonth unless you can do so.Complainants often raise thispoint, �He/she promised to sendme a reply within four weeks;three months later I have heardnothing and he/she doesn�t replyto e-mails�.

3. If you don�t have any infor-mation, don�t ignore the enquiryor fob it off with an �I can�t helpyou� reply. Suggest alternativesources and any guidance youthink may be useful. Manyenquirers are just starting out ontracing their family history andthe last thing they need is a�stone wall� at that stage. Youmay even gain an ally in research.

4. Keep in touch. By doing soyou may gain valuable informa-tion if the enquirer continuestheir researches.

If much of the above seemsdoom and gloom, I am heartenedby correspondence that says:�Despite my problems with Mr X,I have had enormous help fromMiss Y. We have been able toexchange much information andshe has pointed me in the direc-tion of a number of sources that Iwouldn�t have considered.� ❍

If any of these places are inyour neck of the woods, pop inand say hello. I�d be especiallypleased if you could add yourown special brand of �one-nameness� behind the tables foran hour or two. Let me know ifyou�re interested (address below).

Once again, I�m grateful tomembers who turn out to help

on the Bookstall. We promote thefascination of surname studiesand, at the same time, make acontribution to Guild funds. Itseems to me a win-win situation,because people just seem to havea jolly good time! This timeround I want to thank RogerGoacher, Ken Toll and Bob Cum-berbatch, who ran the whole

affair at Kent FHS Open Day, butalso Barbara Harvey (twice!) andat Maidstone Peter Copsey, PhilWarn and Victor Medlock.

If you�d like to contact meabout any of the items on theBookstall, e-mail me [email protected], orwrite to 7 Amber Hill, Camberley,Surrey, GU15 1EB, UK.

N INTERESTING Guildarea meeting, organisedby the DerbyshireRegional Representative,

Ron Duckett, was held in Stret-ton, Burton-on-Trent, onSaturday, September 18.

Most of the afternoon wastaken up by a fascinating presen-tation by David Bethell of theFONS organisation. This was fol-lowed by a useful discussion withKen Toll our hard-working Chair-man, covering what the Guild isup to and the issues concerningthe Committee.

David is a professional geneal-ogist, learned Latin at Maccles-

field Grammar School andstudied Medieval History at Cam-bridge. He professes to be veryinterested in the local history ofNorth Staffordshire and East Che-shire, but not very interested inhis own family history.

David spends a lot of his timetranscribing medieval recordswritten in Latin (or AbbreviatedLatin) and building up a cross-reference index by the surnameshe encounters. Most of David�stalk was about his interest in theOrdination Registers. Starting in

about 1200, the bishops found itnecessary to try to keep recordsof who was a genuine priest, asopposed to impostors. These aremostly English records, as theScots and Irish churches were indecay and the Welsh records havebeen lost.

RegisteredFour times a year, virtually

everyone who learned Latin orwanted to be a clerk would beregistered by suffragan bishops,whether they were acolytes, sub-deacons, deacons or priests. Mostwould be around 21 years of age.If they came from outside thediocese, they would come with aguarantee from some worthygentleman or householder ableto give them a job.

There were strict rules for elig-ibility but in practice these wereself monitoring. They would be

excluded on groundsof homicide orbigamy, but bastardsof various degreecould get a specialdispensation fromRome. Nearly all recordsfor all the Englishdioceses have sur-vived in remarkablygood condition.David has completedseveral indexesincluding the wholeof the Lichfield

diocese, which covered a widearea from the Midlands to Lanca-shire. Starting in 1300, Lichfieldrecords cover 233 years and totalabout 30,000 references.

David told us a little about hisFONS operation. The acronym forFamily Origin Name Survey wasonly invented as a joke whenpressed about the choice of namefor his surname search operation.He is very much a one-man band,apart from enlisting a bit of helpfrom his family.

To keep things simple, he

charges £2 or five dollars (USA,Australia, New Zealand, Canada)for each reference he finds, andgenerally likes to work with anadvance credit of five 10, or 20references in any of four timeperiods. He uses the address 67,Chancery Lane, London WC2A1AF to avoid the impression thathe only covers Staffordshire, butin practice most of his customerscontact him at: The Strines, Leek,ST13 8UL.

To cover the variant problem,he prefers customers to fill in aform that indicates a range ofsurname spellings that are to besearched and also a range ofalternatives that are to beexcluded.

David earned an extra bonuspoint from me, as he had a fairdegree of interest andknowledge of the origin of theADSHEAD surname. ❍

GORDON ADSHEADMember 3331


Guild areameeting isaddressed byFONS manBy Gordon Adshead

GUILD Chairman Ken Toll (left) chats with DavidBethell of FONS at the Derbyshire area meeting

Guild 2004WebsiteAwards

HERE is a reminder that theGuild Website Awards, a com-petition for the best one-namewebsite, is being run again formembers.

As before, the contest willbe divided into two categories:entries from Category A mem-bers and those in Categories Band C, as with the Guild One-Name Periodicals Awards.

ClosingClosing date for entries is

November 30 and the resultswill be announced at the GuildAGM during the Annual Con-ference at Wyboston Lakes inBedfordshire next April.

Full details of the competi-tion can be found on the Guildwebsite at: members/web_award.html

THE 16th Annual Conference ofthe Scottish Association of FamilyHistory Societies will be held atPaisley Grammar High School,Glasgow Road, Paisley, hosted bythe Renfrewshire FHS, onSaturday, April 23 2005.

The theme will be �Surfing ThePast� and speakers will be: Mar-tin Tyson, the General RegisterOffice, Scotland; Alan Steele,local historian; Pete Wadley,National Archives for Scotland;Gordon Urquhart, historian; JanetMcBain, Scottish Screen Archive;and Elizabeth Carmichael, theMitchell Library.

There will be workshops and

bookstalls, too.Further information available

from: www.renfrewshire.org.uk,or by e-mail to [email protected] [email protected], or by send-ing an A5 SAE to: The ConferenceCoordinator, Lesley Couperwhite,34 Corlic Way, Kilmalcolm PA134JD.

Do come along and help meman the Guild display.

This year�s SAFHS Conferencewas hosted by the Central Scot-land FHS in Stirling on April 24,the theme being �In LovingMemory�, a celebration of grave-yards.

There were guided walksround two graveyards outsideStirling on the Sunday, but Iopted instead to go to StirlingCastle, as Historic Scotland allowsfree entries to its properties onone weekend a year � and this

was the one! The Great Hall wasrecently restored and a massivehammerbeam roof re-created,and I had been waiting for achance to see it. The massive oaktimbers were appreciated by aforester.

Stirling has some graveyardson steeply sloping sites and sta-bility of the upright stones is aproblem, not helped by a largerabbit population, but they aremaking them safe without layingthe stones flat or, worse, remov-ing them completely. We wereshown photos of where unstablestones had been re-erected witha concrete base, where all textwas visible.

GRAHAM TULEYMember 437

26 Crown driveInverness

Scotland IV2 3NL


Guild�s Journal wins FFHS�sElizabeth Simpson Award for second time

HE Journal of One-NameStudies has won theFederation of FamilyHistory Societies� Eliz-

abeth Simpson Award for thebest genealogical journal of2003.

It is the second time the Jour-nal has carried off this award,having won in 2000. However,because under the competitionrules we were barred from enter-ing for two years after our firstwin, we have, in effect, achievedback-to-back victories.

FounderThe Award was presented to

Editor Roy Stockdill by itsfounder, Mrs Elizabeth Simpson,at the FFHS�s 30th AnniversaryConference, �A Flight ofYesterdays� at LoughboroughUniversity in August. In theirreport, the Judges said the issueof the Journal, Vol 8 No. 2April�June 2003, was �simply athoroughly professional, eye-

catching presentation.�Runners-up were the Leicester-

shire & Rutland Family HistorySociety and in third place werethe Alberta Genealogical Societyof Canada. The judging panelcomprised: Colin Dean (Chair-man), Editor of the Somerset &Dorset FHS�s journal, a previouswinner; Fred Feather, Chairmanof Essex FHS, last year�s winners;and Simon Fowler, Editor of Fam-ily History Monthly magazine.

In a message to the Guild Com-mittee, copied to the Forum, RoyStockdill said:

�Producing the Journal is ateam job and I want to thankpersonally every member of theCommittee for their supportthroughout my term as Editor,and especially those who contrib-ute regular columns, reports andarticles for the Journal, plus, ofcourse, all those Guild memberswho have also contributed arti-cles and interesting items for it.

�It is your help and support

that has put us right at the top ofthe family history tree and I amsure will keep us there.�

Our printers, Flexpress Ltd ofLeicester, sent an e-mail messagesaying: �Congratulations on win-ning the Elizabeth SimpsonAward again. You deserve it forall the hard work that goes intocompiling the Journal. Flexpressare proud to be associated withsuch a deserved winner.�

Many Guild members attendedthe Anniversary Confer-ence, marking the FFHS�s 30years, which assembled thelargest and most distinguishedline-up of speakers ever seen at agenealogical event in the UK.

From the world of televisionthere came Carenza Lewis, one ofthe presenters of Channel 4�sTime Team, and Dr Nick Barrattand Mac Dowdy of House Detec-tives, while Sarah Tyacke, Keeperof Public Records and ChiefExecutive of The NationalArchives, gave a KeynoteAddress.

Other well-known genealogi-cal lecturers included Dr GeorgeRedmonds, the outstandingexpert on Yorkshire surnames,and David Hey, Emeritus Professorof Local and Family History at theUniversity of Sheffield. ❍

SAFHS Conference2005 will be in Paisley


he Guild�s 2005 AnnualConference and AGMwill be held atWyboston Lakes Con-

ference Centre in Bedfordshirefrom April 1�3.

The purpose-built venue wasso successful and popular withthose attending this year�s Con-ference that we decided tohold next year�s event at thesame place.

The theme next year will be�Names� because that, afterall, is what we as one-namersare all about � finding outabout them, tracing their ori-gins and why some surnamesmoved and some stayed wherethey were.

The AGM will be held on theSaturday, as usual, that is April2. There will be the opportun-ity for attendees who only wishto come for the day, shouldyou not be able to come forthe whole weekend. The book-ing form will be issued withthe January Journal, so pleaselook out for it and send in yourbooking early, as we will belimited as to numbers.

ExpertWe have some well-known

and expert speakers booked.They include:

� Dr George Redmonds, whosome of you will rememberspoke at our Wakefield Semi-nar in October 2001.

Perhaps the world�s fore-most authority on the sur-names of Yorkshire, he haswritten a number of books,including �Surnames andGenealogy: A New Approach�and �Christian Names in Localand Family History�, as well asnumerous articles and bookletson different aspects of local

and family history.� Professor David Hey, Emer-

itus Professor of Local andFamily History at Sheffield Uni-versity, who writes for TheNational Archives� Ancestorsmagazine and whose latestbook is �Journeys in FamilyHistory�.

� Rod Neep, of Archive CDBooks, has agreed to talk to uson �Data Sources for One-Name Studies�, touching alsoon preservation of genealogi-cal data. This is a subject ofparticular interest to many ofour members, who often askthe best way to preserve theirdata.

� Roger Kershaw will be tell-ing us about the migrationrecords held at The NationalArchives.

� Sharon Hintze, Director ofthe Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-Day Saints� Hyde ParkFamily History Centre at Ken-sington, London, will bespeaking about the records theLDS have which will be ofinterest to us.

DatesFull details will be available

with the next Journal. If youare interested, please mark thedates in your diary for 2005now.

I urge you to book early thisyear, as space will be limited.There will also be a bookingform on the Guild website andmore information about thespeakers will be there nearerthe time of the Conference.

I am looking forward to see-ing many of you at WybostonLakes again next year.

SANDRA TURNERConference Organiser

A MUSTER OF USHERS, by JemmaUssher, published by the author,PO Box 1126, Southport, Qld4215, Australia; e-mail:[email protected]. A4-sizedhardback, 637 pages, ISBN 0-646-43289-3, Price $A110-00, butoverseas purchasers should e-mail the author to obtain theprice + p&p in sterling or USdollars.

THE first thing that has to be saidis that this is a big, BIG book. No,make that prodigious...or, betterstill, GINORMOUS! Merely carry-ing it around for a couple ofminutes made my arm ache.

The statistics alone are impres-sive � 637 pages of A4 size, 62chapters, 49 illustrations, 78pages of genealogical tables, 12appendices, and a 27-page, triple-column index. Lord alone knowshow many words have gone intothis massive publication. I would-n�t dare hazard even a guess.

What has to be admitted isthat it is not only an obviouslabour of love but a considerablework of research and scholarship,though whether it is a book thatwill interest a wider readershipoutside those who bear the sur-name USHER/USSHER or one of itsother variants is perhaps some-what more debatable.

I do hope the author managesto recoup some of her investmentin sales, since the outlay musthave been substantial, eventhough the book is self pub-lished. It has been produced withdigital printing in a limited edi-tion of 500 buckram-boundcopies and is quite superbly pre-sented. It would certainly make a

Top speakers and a namestheme for our GuildConference in 2005By Sandra Turner

No dangerof thisHouse ofUshersfalling!


very handsome addition toanyone�s bookshelves.

Jemma Ussher is a Guild mem-ber (No. 1690) and a NewZealand-born genealogist whohas lived in Australia for over 40years. She has also lived inAmerica and travelled widely inEurope, Africa and Asia. A profes-sional genealogist for manyyears, she retired in 1999 to conc-entrate on researching andwriting this book, so her effortsduring the last five years haveclearly been well employed.

It is, in fact, two books in one,being divided into an examina-tion of the known descendantsover 600 years of one ArlandUSCHER, who became Mayor ofDublin in 1469, and other Ushersand Usshers either not known ornot proven to be linked to him.

In an introduction and histori-cal preamble to the main work,the author claims the Usherswere of Norman descent andwere traditionally descendedfrom the Neville family, greatnorthern nobles who played aleading role in much of Englishhistory. She suggests a Neville � orde Nevil, as the family�s originalname was � was granted theoffice of Usher of the Court.

The Usher was chief gentlemanof the court, charged with dailyattendance on the king, carryingout his orders and with allowingonly the most important peopleinto the royal presence.

The Nevilles were deeplyinvolved in the Wars of the Rosesand the author theorises thatsome found it more convenientduring those troubled times tobecome known by the surnameof Usher. She also postulates thatmuch earlier, in 1184, Henry IIsent his younger son Prince John(later King John) to Ireland, thathe took with him a John Nevil asUsher of the Court and thisbrought about the introduction

of the surname into Ireland.Personally, I find this supposed

descent from the Nevilles to bevery speculative, though it ismentioned in the Oxford Diction-ary of Surnames by Patrick Hanksand Flavia Hodges, who say it is atradition among Irish bearers ofthe name USSHER. The firstrecorded instance of the name inIreland occurs with John leUssher, who was Constable ofDublin Castle in 1302.

The author reports it as�popular tradition� that Arland

Uscher, the man whose descen-dants constitute Book One of herprodigious work, was the grand-son of this John Le Ussher, whowas supposedly of either theYorkshire or Westmorland branchof the Nevilles.

This surely cannot be, sinceArland Uscher was apparentlyborn about 1420, and the gapfrom someone who was presum-ably of advancing years in 1302to 1420 is much too great tomake them grandfather andgrandson. However, this is aminor quibble and, to be fair tothe author, she concedes that thedescent is unproven and thatArland Uscher, a Dublin merchantin the reign of Henry VI, couldjust as easily have been

descended from some otherUsher who was an early entrantinto Ireland.

Book One is itself sub-dividedinto four parts, covering thedescendants of Arland Uscher�stwo sons, John and Christopher,in the Old World and the New.Two of these were Primates ofIreland, another was Sir WilliamUssher, who caused the first Irishversion of the New Testament tobe published in Ireland, and yetanother was Arthur Wellesley, 1stDuke of Wellington and the heroof Waterloo, whose great-grand-mother was an Ussher.

As well as a whole string offamous and distinguished Ushersand Usshers, the author alsointroduces us to some less salu-brious members of the clan, like16-year-old John Usher, who in1785 was found guilty at KentAssizes of stealing cloth and sen-tenced to be transported. Hesailed on the Alexandra as part ofthe First Fleet in 1787, thusbecoming the first Usher to arrivein Australia.

There are literally hundreds ofpeople mentioned in this book,which spans several continentsand a huge time-frame. Some aregiven whole chapters to them-selves, while others earn only afew paragraphs.

The author presents muchhistorical background to her castof characters, being especiallystrong � one might say gruesome,even � on man�s inhumanity toman, with graphic descriptions ofthe �ethnic cleansing� of the Irishand horrific massacres of theArmenians in Turkey, the excusebeing to follow the fortunes ofspecific Ushers.

Quibbles? Personally, I foundthe 78 pages of genealogicalcharts in their continuous formatvery difficult to follow until Ieventually got the hang of it.And some of the typesetting iseccentric, with over-large gapsbetween words.

However, on the whole this isa remarkable book and I wish theauthor well with it. ❍

ROY STOCKDILL

Military genius Arthur Wellesley,1st Duke of Wellington, whosegreat-grandmother was an Ussher


A tree of Crabtrees � aYorkshire labour of loveCRABTREE: DWELLER BY THEWILD APPLE TREE, by Peter Crab-tree, published by the author,1305 Cambridge Drive, Oakville,Ontario L6J 1S2, Canada; e-mail:[email protected], 352 pages, ISBN 0-9734347-0-8. Price £18 + £7 p&p.

THE moment I retrieved this bookfrom its packaging and saw thetitle, I knew without even open-ing it that I would enjoy it! Why?Well, as a native of the West Rid-ing of Yorkshire and formerresident of the Calder Valley, nearHalifax, I knew that Crabtree is asurname that is overwhelminglyprominent in that area. Alongwith Greenwood, Crossley andSutcliffe, it is one of the mostprolific surnames around Halifax.

My anticipation was furtherheightened when I dipped intothe opening pages and dis-covered the foreword is by DrGeorge Redmonds, the foremostexpert on West Yorkshire sur-names. Dr Redmonds says theCrabtrees had their origins inBradford and Sowerby some timein the 1300s and the name thencrossed the Pennines into Lanca-shire. However, West Yorkshire isprobably still its principal home.

Peter Crabtree, Guild membernumber 2000, has been studying

his surname for many years andthis book is the culmination of hiswork � and a very impressivepiece of research it is, too. Hebegins by reviewing the originsof Crabtree as a place-name,undoubtedly meaning a spotwhere the crab apple tree grew.

Though Yorkshire is the centreof the surname, there are otherplaces with a �Crab-� element inEssex, Hertfordshire, Northamp-tonshire and Surrey. However,Peter comes to the conclusion,due to the paucity of families ofthe name in records, that none ofthem were a source of thesurname.

OriginsFrom early origins, the author

examines the appearance of theCrabtree surname in early (pre-1538) records like Lay Subsidies,Manor Court Rolls, Assize CourtRolls and wills, before moving onto parish registers.

He offers many detailed chartsand tables of Crabtree baptismsand marriages, property transac-tions and wills in Yorkshire andLancashire, but does not forgetthe rest of the country, with anod towards other English-speak-ing countries.

A section is devoted to someCrabtrees of note but I looked in

vain for any men-tion of perhapsthe most cele-brated Crabtree ofthem all � ShirleyCrabtree, theheavyweight wres-tler who was bet-ter known as BigDaddy. Shirley,who died a fewyears ago, was agentle giant and Iknew him when Iworked on aHalifax newspaperin the 1950s.However, I thenrealised the list

was restricted to those who hadlived before 1850.

One interesting feature of thebook I had not seen used any-where else before is a device bywhich, when the author is indulg-ing in speculation, rather thanfactual evidence, he presents hiscomments in a different typeface.Certainly, an unusual and intrigu-ing arrangement!

He also gives a very usefulglossary of old English words, andthere are chapters on heraldry,employment and economics andfamily life, which help to set thestory of the Crabtrees in theirsocial context.

This is one of those books that,even if you have no personalinterest in the surname, Crabtree,you can dip into at almost anypoint and find something ofinterest. As a model for how towrite a book about a one-namestudy, this is it!

ROY STOCKDILL

BAXTER�S GUIDE: BIOGRAPHICALSOURCES IN THE INDIA OFFICERECORDS (3rd Edition), by Ian ABaxter, published by the Familiesin British India Society, in associa-tion with the British Library.paperback, 80 pages, ISBN 0-9547-116-0-2. Price £5.95.

THIS work has become an essen-tial reference tool for thosefamily historians who areresearching ancestors who servedin India, among whom will bemany one-namers.

First published in 1979, Baxter�sGuide has been updated by FIBIS,in conjunction with the author, toinclude his glossary of terms usedin the administration of Britishindia, which covers 12 pages.

For those who have not used itbefore, the Guide indicates bio-graphical sources, scatteredthroughout the India Officerecords, that are of primaryimportance to family historyresearchers. It is arranged accord-ing to categories of persons toenable researchers, armed onlywith a basic occupational descrip-tion and date, to pursue furtherinformation on an individual.A Crabtree baptisms and marriages chart

Regional Representatives as at September 1 2004

ENGLANDBERKSHIREPeter Tanner7 Reading RoadBurghfield CommonNear Reading RG7 3PY

BUCKINGHAMSHIRESee Oxfordshire

CHESHIREH Gordon Adshead2 Goodrington RoadHandforthWilmslowCheshire SK9 3AT

CUMBERLANDAnne Nichols4 Drovers WayBurtonCarnforthLA 6 1HU

CORNWALLSharon SymonsJoanleaThe MountParCornwall PL24 2BY

DERBYSHIRERon DuckettOutwood Hills FarmLower Outwoods RoadBurton on Trent DE13 0QXTel: 01283 561557

DEVONElizabeth HollidayCaradonJubilee RoadTotnesDevon TQ9 5BW

DORSETPhil SherwoodRock House20 Belfield Park AvenueWeymouth DT4 9RETel: 01305 770820

ESSEXJess Jephcott73 All Saints AvenueColchester CO3 4PA

GLOUCESTERSHIREKen Grubb5 Victoria MansionsMalvern RoadCheltenham Gloucestershire GL50 2JH

HEREFORDSHIREPolly RuberyMedwamEdwyn RalphBromyard HR7 4LYTel: 01885 483318Mobile: 07774 245436

HERTFORDSHIREBarbara Harvey15 Park AvenueSt. Albans AL1 4PBTel: 01727 865631

KENTClifford Kemball168 Green LaneChislehurstKent BR7 6AY

LINCOLNSHIREJohn Laws4 The HardingsWelton LN2 3FE

NORFOLKMrs. Mary Grif�ths20 Knyvett GreenAshwellthorpeNorwich NR16 1HA

NOTTINGHAMSHIREDominic Johnson33 Redhill Lodge Drive Red Hill Nottingham NG5 8JH

OXFORDSHIREDr. Wendy ArcherThe Old NurseryPump Lane NorthMarlowBuckinghamshire SL7 3RDTel: 01628 485013

SOMERSETKen DilkesClematis CottageWhitstone HillPilton BA4 4DX

STAFFORDSHIRESee Derbyshire

SURREYMartin Gegg4 Little OrchardWoodhamAddlestone KT15 3ED

SUSSEX EASTRichard Akhurst95 Sea RoadEast Preston BN16 1LN

SUSSEX WESTRichard Chilvers56 George Fifth AvenueWorthingBN11 5RL

WARWICKSHIRETrish Bliss22 Cheshire AvenueShirley, SolihullWest Midlands B90 2LJ

WESTMORLANDSee Cumberland

WILTSHIRERichard Moore1 Cambridge Close Swindon SN3 1JG

WORCESTERSHIREDerek GallimoreThe Grange30 Pinewoods AvenueHagley, StourbridgeWest Midlands DY9 0JFTel: 01562 883908Fax: 01562 885101

YORKSHIRE EASTFrank Hakney19 Church Street ElloughtonEast Yorkshire HU15 1HT.Tel: 01482 668340

YORKSHIRE NORTHPete RedwoodThe Garden Flat36 Albemarle CrescentScarboroughNorth Yorkshire YO11 1XX

YORKSHIRE WESTSee Yorkshire East

IRELAND Mick Merrigan11 Desmond AvenueDœn LaoghaireCo. DublinTel: (353.1) 284-2711

NEW ZEALANDMrs. Lily Baker905 Wall Road Hastings

SCOTLANDABERDEEN Peter Bellarby13 Westfield RoadStonehavenKincardineshire AB39 2EE

SCOTLAND NORTHGraham Tuley26 Crown DriveInverness IV2 3NL.Tel: 01463 230 446Fax: 01463 230 446

SCOTLAND SOUTHDr. James Floyd84 Pentland TerraceEdinburgh EH10 6HFTel: 0131 445 3906

SOUTH AFRICABrian Spurr32 Newport AvenueGlenashleyKwaZulu Natal 4051

UNITED STATESUSA SOUTH EASTDr. John Cookson13203 W. Heritage Woods Pl.Midlothian VA 23112

USA SOUTH WESTBill BunningPO Box 5632, IrvineCA 92616-5632

WALESWALES NORTH & MIDSee WALES SOUTH & WEST

WALES SOUTH & WESTGeoff RiggsPeacehaven Badgers MeadowPwllmeyric ChepstowGwent NP6 6UE.Tel: 01291 626417

COORDINATORSee Hertfordshire

WE have vacancies forRegional Representatives inthe following areas: BEDFORDSHIRECAMBRIDGESHIREDURHAMHAMPSHIRELANCASHIRELEICESTERSHIRELONDON NORTHAMPTONSHIRESHROPSHIRESUFFOLKAUSTRALIACANADA WESTUSA CENTRALUSA NORTH EASTUSA NORTH WEST

WHY not devote just a littleof your spare time to theGuild by becoming aRegional Rep? Contact theCoordinator.

E-mail contactTo contact a Regional Representative by e-mail, use the alias in the following format:[email protected], with the name of the region replacing�scotland-north� as appropriate (put �-� instead of a space). Where there is no e-mail contact, the message will go to [email protected]

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Journal of One-Name Studies October�December 2004Quarterly publication of the Guild of One-Name StudiesISSN 0262-4842 £2.00 when sold to non-members

Journal of One-Name Studies Editor Roy Stockdill was presentedwith the Elizabeth Simpson Award on behalf of the Guild by itsfounder, Mrs Elizabeth Simpson, at the Federation of Family HistorySocieties’ 30th Anniversary Conference, "A Flight of Yesterdays", atLoughborough University from August 26�30. It was the second timethe Guild has received the award for the best journal, having wonpreviously in 2000. See report on page 27.

Elizabeth Simpson Award

nbi second edition reviewed - the guild of one-name studies

Documents