Adshead One-Name Study

Adshead
One-Name Study

Topics

About the Adshead One-Name Study
Variants
Origin of the surname
Historical occurrences
Frequency of the name
Distribution of the name
Data
Links
Contact Details

About the Adshead One-Name Study

A world-wide study of all known references to ADSHEAD.

Variants

Earliest known (1350) references are to DE ADDSHEAD, DE ADSHEADDE etc. In the early days of civil registration all sorts of mispellings or typos occurred such as ADSHEADE, HADSHEAD, ADZEHEAD etc. The most common typo in current times is ADSMEAD. Currently the only forms beside ADSHEAD appear to be ADSHED (mostly in the USA) and ADSHADE (mostly in Canada). I consider ADSET and ADSETT to be outside the scope.

Origin of the surname

There are several possible theories on the origin of the surname ADSHEAD. Earliest references are all to be found in the Prestbury / Macclesfield area of Cheshire UK. Hamlets in this area include Adswood, Adlington, Adders Moss and later Adshead Green. An Anglo Saxon possibility is Adsheade meaning 'settlement'. There is a possible Celtic association with Adzehead (where an adze is an axe with its blade set at right angles to the shaft to assist cutting side branches off a tree trunk). One poem describes Saint Patrick with a nickname 'Adzehead'. Apparently the Celtic monks in the 7th century shaved their heads across the front from ear to ear, thus resembling an axe. Celtic Monks were not celibate.

Historical occurrences

I am not aware of any 'notable' ADSHEADs prior to the 20th Century. However Joseph ADSHEAD published Adshead's Atlas of the Township of Manchester in 1848. The National Dictionary of Bibliography contains only two ADSHEADs, father and daughter. Stanley Davenport ADSHEAD was an architect and based in Liverpool became a pioneer on Urban Renewal. His daughter Mary was a celebrated artist who completed several murals and won the competition in 1953 to design the high value postage stamps for E2R.

Frequency of the name

There were 1889 ADSHEADs in the 1881 UK Census (rank order 2963) and thus about 13,000 persons with this surname since year 1500. Today (2006) there are about 3000 ADSHEADs in the World.

Distribution of the name

Even today the majority of ADSHEADs in the World live in the Stockport UK area with Post Code starting SK. There are about 200 in the US: 150 in Canada: 50 in Australia and some in New Zealand and South Africa. There is one family in India.

Data

Data on all Births, Marriages and Deaths is about 80% complete and is held in the File Area of the ADSHEAD E-Mail Group. Several members of the Group have mounted files on all sorts of subjects. Other data includes Census Data, Court Records, Patents, Wills, Convict ships etc.

Links

My website <www.adshead.com> contains information on how to join the ADSHEAD E-Mail Group <www.yahoogroups.com/Adshead>

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr H Gordon Adshead
2 Goodrington Road,
Handforth,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire
SK9 3AT
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 25 February 2008.