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
• DNA project
• Links
• Contact Details

About the Adshead One-Name Study

A world-wide study of all known references to ADSHEAD. Started in 1995: Registered with the Guild 3331 in 2000Oct including ADSHADE and ADSETT. In practice the study is a collaborative effort with important contributions from members of the ADSHEAD Yahoo Group.

Variants

Earliest known (year 1350) references are to DE ADDSHEAD, DE ADSHEADDE etc. In the early records all sorts of random mispellings or typos occurred such as ADSHEADE, HADSHEAD, ADZEHEAD etc. We have a list of some 80 deviant spellings of this type. The most common typo in current times is ADSMEAD - addressed on envelopes, but never used by individuals. Currently the only forms beside ADSHEAD appear to be ADSHADE (mostly in Canada) and possibly ADSHED (mostly in the USA) - though it is quite common for newspaper and other technical references to be made to ADSHED even though the individuals do not spell it this way themselves. I used to consider ADSET(TS) to be outside the scope, but recent evidence suggests some overlap of spellings esecially in the county of Sussex.

Origin of the surname

There are several possible theories on the origin of the surname ADSHEAD. Earliest (year 1500) references are all to be found in the Prestbury / Macclesfield area of Cheshire UK. Hamlets in this area include Adswood, Adlington, Adders Moss and an Adshead Green. Adshead Green is no longer on the modern maps, but at this site there is still a farm named Adshead Green and a listed building Adshead cottage.

The year 1350 references to DE ADSHEDDE suggests an origin from a place eg Adsheude or Adsheade, An Anglo Saxon word meaning 'settlement'. One possibility is from such a site in North Lancashire.

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 early 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

There are very few 'notable' ADSHEADs prior to the 20th Century. One Thomas ADSHEAD of Milwich was appointed a commissioner for Staffordshire by Oliver Cromwell in 1653. 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 and the University 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 Queen Elizabeth 2nd.

There are 5x ADSHEAD Roads in the world - one in Vancouver Island CAN. There were a few ADSHEAD farms, but often these have now been converted into sets of residences with an adddress such as ADSHEAD Close or Crescent. There was a ADSHEAD House in Hazel Grove and there is an ADSHEAD Hall in Pleasant Hill, Tennessee USA.

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 (2009) there are about 3000 ADSHEADs in the World.

Distribution of the name

In the late 1500s one in fifty recorded deaths in Prestbury churchyard was an ADSHEAD. By 1881 ADSHEADs were still very localised but the registration district with the most ADSHEADs had moved 10 miles North to Stockport on the Lancashire / Cheshire border following the growth of the cotton industry. Even today the majority of ADSHEADs in the World live in the Stockport UK area with Post Code starting SK. There are pockets of ADSHEAD families in Walsall and Sheffield and there are still counties in the UK (eg Devon) where there has never ever been a recorded ADSHEAD event. There are about 150 in the US: 200 in Canada: 50 in Australia and some in New Zealand and South Africa. There is one ADSHEAD family in India. A few ADSHEADs have begun to retire across Europe, notably to France and Spain.

Data

Data on all registered Births, Marriages and Deaths is mostly complete, but there are still some missing Spouse Forenames and more non-UK records are to be added. This data is held in the File Area of the ADSHEAD Yahoo Group E-mail Forum and in a searchable form on an E-Criteria Database. Several members of the Yahoo Group have mounted files on all sorts of subjects. Other data includes Census Data, Court Records, Patents, Authors, Sports, Wills, WarGraves, Cemeteries, Migration, Patents, Convict ships etc.

DNA project

I have registered DNA studies with the three main variants ADSHEAD, ADSHADE and ADSETT, but so far (2009) we have not begun to match or compare any marker counts. Following the discovery that one large family in Sussex registered children with surnames that migrated from ADSHEAD to ADSETTS it is going to be very interesting to see to what extend these surnames are directly related. Also it may be possible to determine which branch of the ADSHEADs founded the large group of ADSHADEs to be found in Canada. But first it is very important to assemble more documentary evidence. If any person with any of these three surnames would like to take part in some DNA measurements please contact me - Gordon Adshead. <gordon@adshead.com>.

Links

My website <www.adshead.com> contains information on how to join the ADSHEAD Yahoo Group E-Mail Forum <www.yahoogroups.com/Adshead>. This closed Yahoo Group also contains several Index's, Trees, Photos, Files etc relating to ADSHEADs, mostly contributed by members of the ADSHEAD Group.

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr H Gordon Adshead
2 Goodrington Road,
Handforth,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire
SK9 3AT
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:
Telephone: 01625 549770

This page last updated 3 August 2009.

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Profiles of other one-name studies registered with the Guild may be found here.