RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Nick Carver on Thursday 28 October 04 18:52 BST (UK)
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Just got to thinking about whether any surnames had actually died out as opposed to their spelling evolving over the years and if this was the case, is there any record of them? It's not a problem I am facing in my own research, but from my own village there were16th century Lukyns whose name might have changed to Lucan or something else, or it might just have vanished altogether.
Thinking about it some more, I'm not sure how you would ever know if this had happened, but I'm sure that if it has, someone on Rootschat will know.
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My husbands dad had 2 brothers. Brother number 1 had only daughters. Brother number 2 couldn't have children. So my husband was the only boy with that surname. If something had happened to stop us from having children , the name would have died out.
I'm sure it is possible for other families to be in the same situation. In fact with WW1 and 2 plus all the epidemics, it's a wonder that more haven't gone.
Don't know if this has exactly answered your question. That is the only instance i know of a name almost going.
Best wishes
Pauline
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There was an article on this topic in this months "Your Family Tree Magazine", which came out yesterday. Whilst I have the magazine, it is next to me right now, I have not had time to read the article yet.
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hi Nick,
Not on the line that i am researching but on hubby's grandfather's side, way, way back, two brothers had a large argument, they decided to go their separate ways. One brother went north or east and the other brother went south or west. not only that, one of them decided that he didn't want it to be known that he was related to his brother, so he put an A in his name, changing Serle to Searle
legs11
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Interesting question. How would a name become extinct?
In my mind a natural extinction would mean an entire generation would have to be female - married or childless if single.
Alternatively. how many HITLERs are there? Mass name changes?
Pam
;D
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I used to Live in Berlin in the early 70's and there was a Mr and Mrs Hitler lived just up the road from us!
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But in Britain many Hitlers changed their names - I know of a family who all became Hillers.
This in itself throws a blinder to knock you over. When I find a new name associated with my tree I go onto the IGI and see where the distribution roughly centres. I know the Hitler example is too new for this to be apt. But you could go off into a massive false lead if the family just decided to change their names!!!
Sorry this is diverging from the point of the original post - apologies.
Pam
;D
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Hi,
There was an article in "Your family History" magazine, August edition , titled "Am I the last Pimbury in Britain?" . Seems the name Pimbury has died out over the centuries.
Apparently there is only one person with this name in Britain. The gentleman with this name today has not got any children, and he has one sister. He was the only son of a reverend.
At the time of his birth around *1931 he was only one of four males with the surname in Britain, now he is the only one. He has even looked overseas for anyone with the name, but it seems they have all but died out. four of his uncles emigrated to Canada.
:)
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One of my ancestors married an Eliza Julia Nethway. Nethway is so rare that according to Taliesin there are none in the UK. On Genes Reunited there 4, one of them mine [a Londoner] - the others from Swansea.
I looked also for Nethaway, its old form - none of those either. There are 25 Damary people around in the UK but 110 Murrill persons so that side of my family is "flourishing".
Why then is it so hard to trace my ancestors?
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One reason why I am interested in this is that in an 1871 census for one of my maternal ancestors, there is a grand daughter shown as living in the house by the name of Livinia Dosy. I have been unable to track down any other Dosys, even her parents and she had either died by 1881 thus apparently making the name extinct, or the census enumerator was 'in his cups' and not overly bothered about the accuracy of the name of the last member of the household.
I have no great need (or even desire, at this point) to research the family Livinia - there are far too many direct ancestors to hunt, but who knows, one day I might get round to it.
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I'd worry about something other than Dosy. See 1901 census site>
Annie Dosy 1 Wilts Newton Toney Wiltshire Newton Toney
Ellen Dosy 4 Wilts Ludgershall Wiltshire Newton Toney
Ellen Dosy 31 Wilts Broughton Gifford Wiltshire Newton Toney
William Dosy 8 Wilts Ludgershall Wiltshire Newton Toney
William Dosy 33 Wilts Bradford On Avon Wiltshire Newton Toney Police Constable
Ada Dosey 22 Staff Newcastle Stafford Stoke Upon Trent Dressmaker
Emily Dosey 32 Staff Newcastle Stafford Stoke Upon Trent Seamstress Clothing
George Dosey 27 Finsbury London London Shoreditch Douggists Packer
Harold Dosey 17 Staff Newcastle Stafford Stoke Upon Trent Apprentice Plumber
Harriet Dosey 57 Staff Wolverhampton Stafford Stoke Upon Trent
Harry Dosey 15 London St Johns Wood Surrey Barnes Stationer Assistant
James Dosey 19 Staff Newcastle Stafford Stoke Upon Trent Coal Miner Hewer
John Dosey 45 Cardiff Wales Yorkshire North Riding Ormesby Iron Works
William Dosey 63 Salop Alveley Stafford Stoke Upon Trent Insurance Agent
Pauline
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Well if there is a record then bags me be on it! When my grandfather was getting married he was told to use the name by which he was known. He was brought up by his mother's family but his birth was registered in his father's name. So he was known by two surnames and the priest decided to hyphenate them and my father and his sister were baptised with that name (very posh in a mining community). I have one sister so that will be the end of our surname :( I'm not sure if that is long enough to count as a real surname but if in the future someone started on my family tree they would be very confused around 1920!
I do have a "real" name struggling not to be extinct. Walloxall and variations of it just never seemed to get going as a family and limped along through the generations until now I believe there is one young man to carry the name forward. My longterm plan is to see if it is due to a lack of males being born or failure to thrive or disinterest in the female sex ;D
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Pauline
Thanks for your input - I've obviously not been as thorough as my memory was telling me. That part of my family was W Yorks, so the N Yorks reference may be worth a dig. I can't possibly have missed all those other Dosys so must have mentally disregarded all non Yorks references. Of course that in itself is not to be recommended. Another line went E Yorks for 4 generations and then back to Norfolk. Note to self - don't jump to conclusions!
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When I was a child we lived next door to a family whose surname was Dafter. They insisted on being known as Defter, because the children didn't suffer so much. As the children grew up they kept it as Defter, and so the "real" name would eventually die out. I suspect this happens quite a lot with potentially embarrassing names.
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The surname Ellwick is pretty uncommon, have been in touch with someone who has tried to trace all the living Ellwicks, only about 128 of them left.
Some years ago I worked with a lady with the surname Squince, she reckoned she was the last of the line, just had a look on name search on 'the other site' and there are only 16 and no-one after 1851 so praps' she was right ..
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Alternatively. how many HITLERs are there? Mass name changes?
There was a documentary film about exactly that on TV here in Germany sometime last year. There is some guy in Austria born in the 1930s, to a Mr and Mrs Hittler. Due to the political scene at the time, the name Adolf was popular, so that was the name he was given. He said he was proud of his name, was no relation to the infamous dictator and had no intention of changing it.
They also managed to find a Heinrich Himmler.
Interestingly enough though after 1945 the town where the original HH came from changed its name to avoid unwanted attention.
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Suey,
Are YOU researching/conected to the surname Elwick? Also, about that Squince surname it looks like a variation on 'Squance' which is, in my opinion, a regularly occuring name in Devon.
:)
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This is an interesting subject, thanks Nick for bringing it up. I am currently researching the name BROGRAVE, my ggg grandfather, who had 2 daughters - no sons. Apparently there were several generations of male Brograves from one particular line who met sticky ends before they had a chance to produce any male heirs & eventually that line became extinct. They originated from Norfolk/Suffolk. There were only 3 on the 1871 census (ggg grandfather, wife & unmarried sister) & they all died before the 1881 so that seems to be that. I would be interested to know if there are any Brograves anywhere in the UK in a telephone directory.
Minn :)
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Minn - according the ONS Taliesin programme there is nobody named Brograve living in the UK :(
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Hackstaple - thanks very much for looking that up, saves me a lot of fruitless searching!
Cheers
Minn
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This is an old topic I fell over by accident and remembered how interesting I found it. I wonder?
We have a much bigger membership now.
Has anyone got a surname in their tree they can prove is now extinct?
P :)
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Hi Pam
I've found out alot about my Brograves since my last post on this thread. My ancestor changed his name by Royal Licence to Brograve, his mother's maiden name, & I initially thought it was to prevent it from becoming extinct, but I now know from letters I have, that at the same time he applied to have the Baronetcy of his late uncle, "revived in his person".
He wasn't granted the Baronetcy, & the name still became extinct!
Minn :-\
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My husband is an only one his fathers brother never had children and we only had girls so recon thats the end of that line.
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What a card eh Minn, he sounds like an interesting bloke Mr Brograve.
Grumpyblonde - will the surname disappear forever, off the whole planet?
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I am not sure about that. But this particular line of the family -yes
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There are plenty of other branches of my surname, but in our branch I'm the end of the line. My great-great-grandfather had three sons, but only one ever had children...my great-grandfather, of course. He had two sons, but only my grandfather had a son of his own (his brother has three daughters). I'm my father's only son, and due to having had treatment for males cancers there's a good chance I can't have children. I find it ironic that I'm the one researching the family tree, and I'm most likely the last person in it. :( ::)