Elven Thomson

[1wycombe]

Seeing the recent post about unusual names prompted me to ask about Elven Thomson.

I'm searching for my ancestors who came from Leith.

Apparently, two or more Thomson brothers left Leith for England around 1856. One of the brothers settled in Hull, the other travelled on to Poplar. I'm descended from the Poplar brother, Thomas Thomson, and have his information from 1861 onwards.

I have one record that shows a family member by the name of Elven Thomson, in Hull in 1891, age 42. He may be one of the family that left Leith in the 1850s.

Elven searches turn up very little, except a lot of information about small people, Lord of the Rings, and suchlike.

Anyone come across the name Elven, Elren or anything similar?

The Thomson family were mostly boilermakers and may originally have been blacksmiths in Leith. The family that I know of are Thomas Thomson (born around 1819), his wife Elizabeth (c1822), and sons Thomas (c1844), George (c1846), Alexander (c1848), David (c1851), and James (c1856).

Thomson is a very common name in Scotland, so I want to be sure to get the right family before continuing the search. I'm new at this research, so any help in tracking them down would be appreciated. My main sources so far have been scotlandspeople and ancestry.co.uk. I'm located in California, so visiting Uk places is not something I can easily do.
   

[apanderson]

Hi 1wycombe,

Was it an image from the 1891 Cencus you saw the name 'Elven' ?

I've never heard of Elven as a name.

Could it be a mis-transcription of Ellen - an instance of difficult to read handwriting perhaps?

Anne

[1wycombe]

Yes, it was, but the handwriting is quite clear, except it could be Elren or Elven.
The person is listed as male, uncle. the printed family list also says Elven.
A Yahoo search turned up one or two people with the name Elren, but no Elven.
Bit of a mystery and I can only assume the census taker misheard the name.
Can't think what the name could have been though.