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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: coombs on Saturday 25 March 23 18:45 GMT (UK)
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I guess this comes under ancestors who moved around before census eras, but you still have to find the documents to show they did move around. And often if you cannot find the evidence, it can be hard to determine, even if they had a locative surname such as the Norfolk name Cattermole in Birmingham in the late 1700s for example.
As was customary, lots of cities had the strays, the ones who moved there looking for work, especially London. For instance looking through St Margaret Westminster records for the 1700s I found surnames like Horsfall (a Northern surname) among several other locative surnames.
And interestingly my ancestor was a William Inkpen who wed in Oxford in 1765. He was a college servant, and later a publican before dying in 1769. His wife Jane (Nee Gater, later Coles before becoming Inkpen in 1765) was from Burford, a large Oxfordshire village near the Oxon/Gloucs border. They wed by licence, and the original licence says William Inkpen was a servant, bachelor, aged over 21, sponsor was Richard Baylis. His marital status not given in actual marriage register for St Peter In The East, Oxford. Witnesses to actual marriage was Richard and Mary Baylis. Now the surname Inkpen may have very ancient origins in Inkpen, Berkshire but by the 1700s Inkpen was a Sussex, Kent or Dorset surname. No known Inkpen baptisms, marriages or burials in Oxfordshire prior to 1765. William died in 1769, no age given at death. They had 2 children, James and William. James seems to be from Jane's side as her father was James Gater.
The above example is food for thought, that William Inkpen was probably from Kent, Sussex or Dorset. I have looked for any further info on him and his origins but to no avail. No poor law records for Oxford mention any Inkpen's.
I know Oxford was a city that also had a lot of people move there to study, but probably also to work in the colleges.
Also In have a weaver ancestor called Dennis Helsdon who wed in London in 1784. It did not take me long to find out he was the same Dennis Helsdon born in 1756 in Norwich, Norfolk. And his wife was Susan Helsdon, nee Fradine, a Huguenot.
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Coombs - I am probably wrong, but I was under the impression that 'location' surnames started way back when someone moved from one settlement to another.
For instance - if their name was John and they moved from Lancaster to Preston - in their new settlement they would be named John o' Lancaster, to differentiate him from the other Johns already living in Preston.
Hence a lot of centuries elapsed between being given a location surname before census records began. have you looked at the surname database?
https://www.surnamedb.com/
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Coombs - I am probably wrong, but I was under the impression that 'location' surnames started way back when someone moved from one settlement to another.
For instance - if their name was John and they moved from Lancaster to Preston - in their new settlement they would be named John o' Lancaster, to differentiate him from the other Johns already living in Preston.
Hence a lot of centuries elapsed between being given a location surname before census records began. have you looked at the surname database?
https://www.surnamedb.com/
Thanks for the link. The Inkpen surname is said to be locational from either Inkpen in Berks or Inkpen in Devon. It does say such locational surnames names were generally given either to inhabitants who moved voluntarily or otherwise from their village to some other place usually in search of work.
I am not sure how old William Inkpen was in 1765, just he was over 21 according to his marriage license. His wife Jane was born in 1737 but William may have been around the same age, or even much older if he was a college servant then a publican before he died in 1769. His origins may always remain a mystery to me, or I may one day find what I am looking for.
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We had a postman named Inkpen when I was a child - it seemed very appropriate!
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My understanding (and it may be wrong) is that the locational surnames generally came into being in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Some were of purely local significance (Hill, Athill, Wood, Dale, Ford etc.) as they helped to distinguish from others of the same name in the same parish; whilst others might identify the parish they were from when they moved to a different parish. A good example of the latter is Haradine, quite common in Bedfordshire and referring to the Bedfordshire village of Harrowden.
Society was much more mobile than many of us realise prior to the 17th century ... because the system of returning vagrants to their "home" parish only arose under the various Poor Law acts from 1601 onwards. So that gives a good two to three hundred years for these "local" names to spread and become established in distant parts.
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Top of the Hill -- you are so right about the appropriate name for your Postman. I have an ancestor named Leadbeatter - he was a Tinman and Brazier. That always amused me.
Of course other surnames came into place FROM occupations as well as ex-locations. Also from nicknames - Long, Short, White, Black (colour of hair I imagine).
I actually did wonder if Coombs' ancestor's name of Inkpen could have been an occupational name - for a scribe in that very early settlement where the family originated. However as there are locations named Inkpen, it is more likely to be a very ancient, locational name.
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I suspect Coombs is more likely to have originated as an occupational name for a woolcomber ...
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My Coombs like originates in Bincombe, Dorset and before that, the West Compton Abbas area and Askerswell.
As for William Inkpen born c1710-1740. I doubt he was from Oxfordshire due to the surname being from Kent, Sussex or Dorset. But whether I will ever find info on his origins is another matter.
Luckily I was able to get the origins of Dennis Helsdon quite quickly. He was a weaver, originally of Norwich then moved to Bethnal Green, London, for work I say. His wife's father Francis Fradin was a French immigrant weaver, one of the last Huguenots to come to the UK in 1752, so the Helsdon and Fradin family probably met through weaving in Bethnal Green.
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I once traced someone's ancestry back to a place in Derbyshire which had their surname.
The place gets described in Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler, and I understand that they intended to make a pilgrimage to Charles Cotton's Fishing House, though the ancestor involved was from the century after Isaak, and happened to be the mother of an illegitimate child.
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I have Goodacre's in 1700s Bermondsey, and the surname is a Leicestershire name.
Also my Jerome ancestors of Bermondsey in the 1700s can be traced back to Scropton, Derbyshire. My ancestor Parmenas Jerome's dad was William Jerome, a feltmaker according to his children's baptisms. I found his London apprenticeship records for 1696, and he wed in 1703. The 1696 apprenticeship abstracts said he was the son of Robert Jerome a yeoman of Scropton.
I cannot get back further than William Goodacre born c1710 but if he had midland ancestor or was from there originally, then it seems many of my Bermondsey kinfolk originally came from the Midlands.
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Inkpen surname distribution and meaning here:
https://forebears.io/surnames/inkpen#:~:text=The%20surname%20Inkpen%20occurs%20mostly,people%2C%20or%201%20in%2080%2C625.
Carol
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Good link Treetotal, thanks.
Regards
Chas
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Thanks for the link Treetotal.
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It is really good for tracing the movement of the population using related surnames.
Glad it is of some use for you all.
Carol
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You may strike lucky with pre census ancestors in towns and cities who left a will or were subject to a poor law record stating where they were once settled. Or they had a rare name, or they were immigrants such as Huguenots who kept great records. My ancestor Susan Fradine born 1765 had one immigrant parent, her French father who was one of the last Huguenots to come to the UK. Susan's mother's grandparents were all born in France, as was one parent, her father. I embrace my Huguenot ancestry.
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I have a 3x Sussex great-grandmother named French; figure someone hoped over the Channel at around the time surnames were becoming permanent.
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I was reading my book last night about tracing Huguenot ancestry and it did say you can hit a dead end in genealogy in the 1700s (which is quite well known) but it was also a time of great mobility. Trouble is it is not easy proving they came from somewhere else unless you hit lucky.
Glad my 5xgreat grandmother Susannah Fradine chose to romance a man named Dennis Helsdon in the 1780s and marry him, and not a John Smith. I was soon able to prove my 5xgreat grandfather Dennis came from Norfolk.
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Bumping this thread due to special mention of my ancestor Joseph Stillington/Shillington/Stinnington born c1700. By 1728 he married widow Susan Saward at the Fleet, and Joseph said he was a brick maker of Romford, Essex. Susan was of Langdon Hills. Susan died and Joseph remarried to my ancestor Martha Kilby nee Lavender in 1745. Joseph had children Robert, Joseph, Ann, Martha and Mary. Joseph died in 1751 in Langdon Hills.
The surname Stillington/Shillington/Stinnington is a surname found mainly in the Leics/Rutland/Yorks/Notts and Derbyshire area of England. I have not yet been able to find concrete evidence of Joseph's life before his 1728 wedding. But it is likely he had ancestors from the Midlands. He may have been born in London area then moved eastwards, or he may even have been born in the Midlands and moved south for work, or did an apprenticeship down south then settled in Essex. There is a chance I may never know for sure but he is a particular ancestor of interest.
Looking up keywords "brickmaker" and "Romford" I found a John Hollingseed of Romford married at the Fleet in 1731. The surname Hollingseed is a Staffordshire surname. I very much doubt he was connected to Joseph Stillington but it is likely an example of how people moved around for work.