Womacks in Yorkshire - Norfolk migration?

[bugbear]

During my research of my family (patrilineal Womack line), I have had to avoid/filter out hits in Yorkshire, especially Sheffield and Leeds.

The history of the Womack name in Norfolk is well documented

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~rgwomack/genealogy/mautbywomacks.htm
https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~rgwomack/genealogy/lopham.htm

And yet the Womacks of Yorkshire are more numerous, at least by 1841 (and onwards)

https://your-family-history.com/surname/w/womack/?year=1841#map

Yorkshire - 189, Norfolk 33.

Does anyone know details of this (whats looks like a) migration, either of Womacks, or East Anglians more generally, to Yorkshire?

    BugBear

[fiddlerslass]

Don't know about Yorkshire, but doing a search for Womack on Durham Records Online, which has quite an extensive database, the earliest baptism they have is Mary Womack, 1809 at Whickham, which is near Gateshead DUR. Here is the BT  - her father was a migrant from Suffolk.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-XCH3-KLM?i=266&wc=9K5Q-6TP%3A13618101%2C33056201%2C33056202&cc=1309819

There is only one Womack will  surviving for Durham/ Northumberland which is of the innkeeper William Womack of Morpeth, made in 1819.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DZ5Q-1NZ?cc=2358715

I think this could be the William Woomack (sic) buried at Morpeth NBL in 1825 born about 1752 according to Durham Records Online index. His wife Sarah could be the one died Morpeth 1834 b. 1777. He was also probably born outside the area.

On the other hand, looking at familysearch.org there are Womacks being christened in Yorkshire in the early1600's, so did they only gradually spread further afield? I only found one Womack in the available west and east riding YKs and City of York digital hearth tax of 1672

[arthurk]

George Redmonds, in his "Yorkshire Surnames", believes its origin is a nickname derived from 'wombe', in the sense of womb or stomach. His earliest reference is in Barnby Dun, near Doncaster, in 1379, and it appears to have grown from there, though still mainly in the southern part of the West Riding.

He notes that the name also occurs in Norfolk, and mentions a Thomas Wombe in Swaffham in 1379. However, if it does derive from a nickname, it seems quite possible that it arose independently in different parts of the country.

On the other hand, I have come across some fairly compelling hints that one of my Yorkshire families might have come over from Norfolk around the early 1500s, though sadly I have no definite proof of it. I suspect the wool trade was a factor in it.

[bugbear]

It appears that my notion of "Womack" as having a purely Norfolk origin may need review :-)

[bugbear]

I did some querying in the FindMyPast Yorkshire Baptism Records. I don't know the exact coverage of this dataset.

https://www.familyhistorydirectory.co.uk/england/yorkshire/parish-records/

Having found that "name variants" was far too broad in its interpretation of "womack" I used wildcarding. I did some spot checks to ensure my wildcarding wasn't hopelessly daft.

My results follow; almost all the counts were in the West Riding, with North and East Ridings having counts in the 0-5 range, normally 0. There's quite a jump around the 1760 mark, which might be telling us something.

[Rena]

Last name: Womack

The origin is topographical and derives from the Old English/Anglo Saxon,  pre 7th Century female name "Wulerun" plus "Ac" meaning "oak tree", in other words the dweller by the oad(s) of Wulfrun, the prominent oak trees were often used as the local meeting place of the "tribes".

OR this could be the origin:-

The name "seems to mean Hollow Oak (from residence thereby) [Old English wamb, womb, hollow, cavity + ac, oak-tree]" and another source notes that it could have been a personal name as in Wimarch, Wimer which appear in the Domesday Book of 1086.

OR:

The origin is topographical and derives from the Old English pre 7th Century female name "Wulerun" plus "Ac" meaning "oak tree", in other words the dweller by the oad(s) of Wulfrun, the prominent oak trees were often used as the local meeting place of the "tribes".

[Pennines]

Also - in the early 1800s many people from the rural areas of the South, such as Suffolk and Norfolk - were moved North. If there was a bad harvest it meant many people from farming communities were starving and applying for poor relief.

The Poor Law Guardians from North and South agreed that many of these claimants, could be moved North, to Yorkshire, Lancashire etc - to work in the Mills.

Many were sent up by canal.

So if you do a search with no names - but in the county of Yorkshire (or Lancashire) and a birthplace of Norfolk - it should show that quite a few people moved that way - not only Womacks.

[arthurk]

I did some querying in the FindMyPast Yorkshire Baptism Records. I don't know the exact coverage of this dataset.

More or less all of Yorkshire except for the modern (post-1974) West Yorkshire - so it does include the southern part of the West Riding where the surname is/was most common.

My results follow; almost all the counts were in the West Riding, with North and East Ridings having counts in the 0-5 range, normally 0. There's quite a jump around the 1760 mark, which might be telling us something.

There might be other factors involved, but a couple of things spring to mind:
(a) The further back you go, the fewer records survive. Sometimes this is particularly true with Bishops Transcripts, so if the older BTs are missing for a parish where the name is common, then you get to a period where they've survived, you'll get a big increase in numbers. (Events that occur in both PRs and BTs appear twice in FindMyPast's index.)
(b) I've found that for some parishes the registers have been filmed twice, and that gives rise to yet another index entry. (So too does an FHS transcript, and FindMyPast have a number of those.)

So don't read too much into the figures; to get a better idea of what they mean, you might find it helpful to try the same exercise with another surname that's fairly localised to the same area. One that might fit the bill from my family is Bingley; possibly also Pigott/Pygott?

[bugbear]

I've spent (possibly too much) time getting details of the 1750/1770 "step change", plotting each baptism location.

1750 on the left, 1770 on the right.