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  1. #11
    Hollytree
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    Hi

    May I suggest that if you want to go into surnames and their origin then George Redmonds and Colin D Rogers have written definintive books on the subject. All I have been led to believe that if you have Welsh ancestry then because patroymics continued later than England that this explains the paucity of surname in Wales.

    Anne

  2. #12
    Carmy
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    Which throws us back to my original question--is it possible there were two villages miles apart with the same name? Yes, it is. But is it possible that two separate families of Normans took the place name as their surname?

    Until I can find a link to tie me to Shropshire or Lancashire, I won't know for sure.

  3. #13
    Anna
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    I've been having a look at Shropshire and Crompton seems to be a very common name. For example, although not on the borders and edging more towards Iron Bridge, in All Saints Broseley there is a monument to Elizabeth Crompton of Broseley Hall dated 1747 and if you look at Broseley FHS and put Crompton into their search box you come up with loads of PDFs about people called Crompton going back to 1600s. But there is the dilemma, just because you have a name in common it doesn't mean you are related to them.

    I think it's always best, once you have a firm connection, go back, one step at a time, slow but steady.

  4. #14
    Geoffers
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carmy
    But is it possible that two separate families of Normans took the place name as their surname?
    Yes it is possible

  5. #15
    MythicalMarian
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    On the subject of locative surnames, my own family name is locative and there are at least (the last time I counted) 81 placenames in England with the derivation of my name in the title - not to mention hundreds of other farmsteads and hamlets now lost. I tried to tell a person this long ago when he firmly believed that everyone called Stokes in England and America came from one man.

    But even allowing for just a handful of Crompton villages in England, what leads you to believe that there is a Norman connection, Carmy? I always think we're on a hiding to nothing when we look at a family in or about our location in the 16th century or something and try to trace it downwards to find a connection to our own. As Anna says, it is much safer to go backwards from the firm evidence of proven ancestors as far as you are able before you even think of searching those dusty manorial rolls and the like.

  6. #16
    Carmy
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    Thanks, Anna. It was only a couple of days ago that research brought up Shropshire. Until then, most of what I found outside of Wales led back to Lancashire. Something tells me that is wrong, but don't ask me why. It's pure instinct. Shropshire seems far more likely, given how widespread Crompton is in Wales. There is a thread leading back to London, which we are now checking, but so far there hasn't been a link to any other place.


    Thanks, Geoffers. I think it's more than likely, too, given how many crooked waterways there are. From what I've read of history and archaeology, people have always settled close to rivers. Communication back in Norman times wasn't as swift as it is today, so two separate groups could easily have adopted the same locative name even though they lived miles apart and were not related.


    Hi Marian. The reason I'm looking at the Norman period is because they were known to adopt the names of villages as their family names. The majority of research done on the Net points to Crompton being a village in Lancashire that a Norman family adopted as a name. Firm evidence right now takes the family back to the 15th century, sometimes on the wrong side of the blanket, with connections to the names FitzWilliam and Fowlkes, with a sidetrack to Lloyd Hall on the way. There are gaps which we are trying to fill in as well as a couple of mysteries.

    We've checked the Cromptons in Lancashire, which every genealogy site (include A**) mentions in detail, but nothing there is familiar. Nothing links to us as yet, nor does it link to London.

  7. #17
    MythicalMarian
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carmy View Post
    Hi Marian. The reason I'm looking at the Norman period is because they were known to adopt the names of villages as their family names. The majority of research done on the Net points to Crompton being a village in Lancashire that a Norman family adopted as a name. Firm evidence right now takes the family back to the 15th century, sometimes on the wrong side of the blanket, with connections to the names FitzWilliam and Fowlkes, with a sidetrack to Lloyd Hall on the way. There are gaps which we are trying to fill in as well as a couple of mysteries.
    I've put the family historian aside and put on my academic historian's hat for this. First and foremost, what is your source for the statement 'they were known to adopt the names of villages as their family names' and 'The majority of research done on the Net points to Crompton being a village in Lancashire that a Norman family adopted as a name'. Again, which sources have been used here, and with what authority?

    I think I know exactly which Crompton you mean. It is now in the district of Oldham, and is very familiar to we Lancastrians. But if it isn't this particular Crompton - then there you are - yet another source of origin? The adopting of a placename as a 'family name' was not peculiar to Normans. We have to be very careful here. I really would forget the Normans at the moment and go backwards rather than forwards. Glorious names such as Fitzwilliam are of course very attractive, but it is best to establish a firm basis for your known Cromptons, and with all the evidence to back them, such as certificates, wills, baptisms whatever, before we start to speculate on the origin of such a family name. Just work back from your known Cromptons and worry about their antecedents when all extant evidence is exhausted.

  8. #18
    Carmy
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    Hi Marian.

    I have no idea where the original information about the Normans adopting village names came from. I've run numerous searches via Google over the years and read many family records. The Norman name adoption is mentioned in several places, not that it is any proof of accuracy. I have to trust the "experts" because I can't go back in time and find out for myself. The main research drive is being done in Wales. All the information gathered and sent to me has been verified via certificates, and I've double checked it myself.

    The Shropshire appearance of Crompton offers some hope, because Lancashire links don't thus far. All we can do right now is read as many Shropshire Crompton family records as we can find in the hope that something ties in with the threads we have.

    The London appearance is a stumbling block. The certificates sent for are not for the right man because the mother's name is wrong. She is our link to the Fitzwilliam name.

    I mention Norman times only because it says, in several places on the Internet, that Crompton/Crumpton was adopted as a family name in Norman times. As I said in my original post, I needed to know if more than one village was called by that name. As yet, I haven't found mention of the name during pre-Norman times. The term 'crumpton' is British, apparently, and appears to predate the Normans. The word isn't Anglo-Saxon, unless K was changed to C at some time, nor is it Brythonic Celtic. Old English was phonetic, so the spelling of a place could have easily changed. With the arrival of the Normans, French became an important Birtish language but I don't speak French so I don't know if the word existed at that time.

  9. #19
    Geoffers
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carmy
    The Shropshire appearance of Crompton offers some hope, because Lancashire links don't thus far. All we can do right now is read as many Shropshire Crompton family records as we can find in the hope that something ties in with the threads we have.
    If doing this via the internet, please be very careful in so doing, there is a lot of dis-information available which is not based on sound research. Someone who has made lots of incorrect assumptions sends their load of squit to someone else as a gedcom, they import it and publish it themselves, and so on. A good example of this is all the rubbish which has been submitted to the mormons and appears on the IGI.

    The certificates sent for are not for the right man because the mother's name is wrong. She is our link to the Fitzwilliam name.
    If you are still working on civil registration documents, then jumping back several hundred years and trying to link the two is going to be exceptionally difficult.

    in several places on the Internet, that Crompton/Crumpton was adopted as a family name in Norman times.
    It may have been adopted during the period following the invasion by William the Bastard, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was adopted by anyone who was part of the invasion force.

    Are the internet sources verifiable?

    There are several dictionaries of surnames, which (in my opinion) unfortunately list early mentions of names. Some internet family 'histories' take these records out of context and assume a relationship to them as the origins of the surname.

    I would hazard a guess that at least 99.9% of those researching family history will never find a verifiable link to the person from whom a surname was inherited.

    As yet, I haven't found mention of the name during pre-Norman times.
    You may never find mention of the place name pre-invasion - few documents survive and relatively few locations in Lancashire are mentioned in Domesday (most of those listed are coastal). The place may just have been the name of a farm which just did not figure in early documents.

    [quoe]The term 'crumpton' is British, apparently, and appears to predate the Normans. The word isn't Anglo-Saxon unless K was changed to C at some time [/quote]

    I disagree, the word consists of Old English elements.

    You seem to be suggesting that the letter 'c' did not exist in Old Englsh? This is incorrect.

  10. #20
    Carmy
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    Hi Geoffers,

    I do not trust the Internet and I am sceptical of any information I find, regardless of whether I'm researching names or something else. I find errors repeated in so many places that it's no wonder some people take it as gospel truth. Perhaps some sites trawl others looking for something to copy and thus perpetuate the errors. Challenging them is a waste of time, I've learned.

    I am cautious, trust me, otherwise I would have accepted Lancashire families as part of my own. It was a revelation and a form of relief to learn of a Crumpton in Shropshire. I haven't yet explored the families there but I will be just as cautious when I do. Thus far, certificates and archived documents have given us all the information we have back to the 1500s.

    I agree that it may not have been a Norman who adopted the name, but I wonder how many Brits were allowed to keep their holdings when William awarded his followers (read army) land and manors. Given the rural nature of most of Britain during the conquest, it is more than likely that Crumpton/Crompton was the name of a farm. The research we have points to the family being farmers right down to present day.

    No, I'm not saying that C didn't exist in Old English, just that it didn't exist in Anglo-Saxon English, which was in place when the Normans arrived. (The A-S dictionaries I checked show the use of K at the beginning of words and names.) Brythonic predates Old English and has no K in the alphabet only C (which has the phonetic K sound). The K seems to have arrived with the Saxons and was used in place of C by those who didn't speak one of the Celtic languages. Welsh parish records are a good example of K being used instead of C until the mid 1800s. My Latin is 99% forgotten but I don't believe the Romans used K either.

    The London link is around 1865, so we aren't going back that far. We don't have the exact birthdate so finding the right certificate is proving expensive. We'll get it eventually. It's unfortunate that it has to be London. From the problems I've read of others trying to find registers in London, I don't think the blitz helped much. I'm sure everything was done to protect records, but they were of little value when compared with saving lives. My own baptism records were destroyed during WWII, and I lived in a tiny Welsh village. How much greater the destruction would have been in London.

    We have a tangled web to unweave, and I thank you for all your help.

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