Vol 9 Issue 1 January–March 2006 Mapping stability and change in surname distribution Was your ancestor a bellow farmer, baven maker or a harlot (no, not THAT kind!) The world’s leading publication for one-namers News of Guild seminars, Annual Conference and other events GUILD OFFICERS CHAIRMAN Box G, 14 Charterhouse Buildings Peter Walker Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA 24 Bacons Drive Tel: 0800 011 2182 Cuffley E-mail: [email protected] Hertfordshire Website: www.one-name.org EN6 4DU Registered as a charity in England 01707 873778 Guild information and Wales No. 802048 [email protected] Sales VICE-CHAIRMAN Paul Millington AS well as Guild publications, the President 58 Belmont Street Sales Manager has a supply of Jour- Derek A Palgrave MA FRHistS FSG Worcester nal folders, ties, lapel badges and Worcestershire back issues of the Journal. The Vice-Presidents WR3 8NN address is: Peter Goodall 01905 745217 Ernest Hamley [email protected] Howard Benbrook John Hebden 7 Amber Hill Peter Towey SECRETARY Camberley Kirsty Gray Surrey 11 Brendon Close GU15 1EB Tilehurst, Reading England Berkshire RG30 6EA E-mail enquiries to: Guild Committee 0118 941 4833 [email protected] The Committee consists of the [email protected] Officers, plus the following: Forum REGISTRAR Howard Benbrook Roger Goacher THIS online discussion forum is Rod Clayburn Springwood open to any member with access to Peter Copsey Furzefield Road e-mail. You can join the list by Barbara Harvey East Grinstead sending a message with your mem- Roy Rayment W Sussex RH19 2EF bership number to: [email protected] Ken Toll 01342 326663 Sandra Turner [email protected] To e-mail a message to the forum, send it to: TREASURER [email protected] Bookstall & Sales Manager Cliff Kemball Howard Benbrook 168 Green Lane Regional Representatives Forum Manager Chislehurst A LIST of Regional Representatives Sharon Symons Kent BR7 6AY of the Guild in a number of UK Regional Reps Co-ordinator 0208 467 8865 counties and overseas can be found Sandra Turner [email protected] on the inside back cover of this Website Manager Journal. If you are interested in Paul Millington EDITOR becoming a Regional Rep, please Roy Stockdill contact the Regional Representa- 6 First Avenue tives Co-ordinator, Sandra Turner SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMEN Garston, Watford (address and phone number on the Executive Peter Walker Herts WD25 9PZ inside back cover). Marketing Kirsty Gray 01923 893735 Seminar Vacant [email protected] The Journal of One-Name Studies is published quarterly by the Guild of One-Name Studies and printed by Flexpress Ltd, 5 Saxby St, Leicester ISSN 0262-4842 © Journal of One-Name Studies Vol 9 Issue 1 January–March 2006 MAIN ARTICLES 6 How a DNA Project has produced discoveries in the Meates One-Name Study not possible with paper records alone – COVER STORY SUSAN MEATES relates the story of her DNA Project spanning several continents 11 Looking at ancient occupations – was your ancestor a bellow farmer, baven maker or a harlot (no, not THAT kind!) – COVER STORY JOHN HANSON finds some interesting occupations on websites and in census returns 14 Mapping stability and change in surname distribution – COVER STORY HOWARD MATHIESON looks at surname patterns of his Gloucestershire ancestors 17 How my Bradleys inter-married with Bulls, Boars, Birds, Butchers, Bakers, Berrys, Bodys and Broads JOHN BRADLEY indulges himself in a totally frivolous exercise GUILD REPORTS • NEWS • EVENTS 18 Wide variety of interesting talks at Lesser-Known Sources Seminar in Plymouth 19 Introduction to One-Name Studies Seminar at Bransgore 20 Seminars update • Gearing up for the Guild Annual Conference 21 How about becoming a Regional Rep • Guild One-Name Publications Award • Forthcoming Scottish conferences 23 Marriage Challenge update REGULARS 4 From the Chairman’s keyboard PETER WALKER 22 A View From The Bookstall HOWARD BENBROOK 24 Registrar’s Notes ROGER GOACHER 25 Reviews of new genealogy books and CDs 26 One-name mail – Your letters 26 The Last Word ROY STOCKDILL 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 and October. 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 in whole without the prior permission of the publishers. The views expressed in the Journal are those of individual contributors and are not necessarily those of the Committee of the Guild of One-Name Studies. The distribution list for this Journal, and the information in the Register Update, is based on the information held in the Guild database on the first of the month preceding the issue date. 3 Charity Commission’s greater scrutiny, so... Be sure to use your vote on Guild’s new Constitution N LAST quarter‘s Journal I explained about the proposed Trustees face, we also intend to changes to the Guild’s Constitution. With this issue you should seek agreement to the provision receive a supplement with the proposed new Constitution and of Trustee Indemnity Insurance, an explanation of the changes we are making. In essence, the which is allowed by the Charity reasons we are revising the Constitution can be divided into internal Commission, but with strict limi- and external drivers. tations. For reasons explained in From the Guild‘s own internal Much has been written about the supplement, this has to be focus, we wish to change some “corporate governance” in the the subject of a separate vote. aspects of the way the Commit- commercial world, which has in The ballot process will be tee, the Executive and the various recent years been wracked by undertaken by Electoral Reform subcommittees work in order to scandals. Charities, too, face the Services (ERS) and papers will be improve our management of same challenge of demonstrating sent out separately to all eligible Guild activities, as well as updat- that they are properly run. members. ing some finance, membership Yet our current Constitution Votes need to be returned to and registration procedures to doesn‘t even mention that all the ERS by February 28. To be reflect current practice. Guild Committee members are approved, each resolution Externally, all charities now Trustees and legally liable for the requires a two-thirds majority of face the prospect of greater scru- operation of the Guild. So we are those voting — so please do use tiny by the Charity Commission. also making a number of changes your vote! In the meantime, if They need to demonstrate that to reflect the “best practice” for there are any changes that you they are genuinely charitable in charities as suggested by the don‘t understand or you would character and are run in a discip- Charity Commission itself. like further clarification, please lined, transparent way. Given the legal liability that don‘t hesitate to contact me. ❍ Digitising everything in the Guild Library OLLOWING the review necessarily sent to us with the We feel sure you all now use of our library material objective of our making them word processors or desktop pub- and a trial with three available to others — for one lishing programs to produce your different scanning com- thing, we don‘t hold the newsletter and we would be panies, we have decided to copyright. Therefore, we would pleased to receive them in Word, proceed with the digitisation of make three pleas to all of you RTF or PDF formats. all our library collection. who have sent, or are still send- Thirdly, if you have past copies This will make it easier to dis- ing, your newsletters to us. in electronic format, we would be tribute material and, we hope, Firstly, can you please let us pleased to receive these, too. will make our archived studies know if you are happy for us to As regards depositing new and other documents more distribute your donated newslet- one-name material with the accessible than ever before. ters in digitised format to other library, we would now much pre- However, much of the material members on request? fer that this is donated on CD- we have comprises one-name Secondly, if you are still regu- ROM and Roger Goacher‘s newsletters that have been sent larly sending your newsletters to previous guidance on how to do to us over the years by individuals us, can you now please cease this has now been placed on the and one-name societies. In this sending a physical copy and send Guild website in the Members‘ case, the magazines were not us an electronic version instead? Room. ❍ 4 Journal of One-Name Studies, January–March 2006 Why not try receiving the Chairman’s e-mail Newsflash with an RSS reader? AS THOSE of you with e-mail will messages via an RSS reader. RSS dom about doing a one-name know, I try to keep you updated stands for Really Simple Syndi- study. In a future Journal, I hope with news in between Journals cation and is a way of reading to describe how all these new via the Chairman‘s Newsflash. messages and news of your web technologies, such as RSS, When I sent out Newsflash 10 in choice from a multiplicity of “blogs” and Wikis can help you October, a number of Forum newsfeeds, mailing lists and with your one-name studies. members said they hadn‘t “blogs” all in one place. It‘s like received it and I went to a lot of having a daily newspaper where Free publicity trouble to re-transmit the News- you decide which columns are They say all publicity is good flash again, using a slightly going to appear in your personal- publicity and free publicity is different method.