Ashpole One-Name Study

Ashpole
One-Name Study

Topics

About the Ashpole One-Name Study
Variants
Origin of the surname
Historical occurrences
Frequency of the name
Distribution of the name
Data
DNA project
Contact Details

About the Ashpole One-Name Study

Research of our Ashpole ancestries in London produced the realisation that most London Ashpoles in the late 19th century belonged to one genetic family, that the name is quite rare and prior to the 20th century, rather limited in its geographic distribution. This prompted our study with these objectives:

To determine whether all persons of the name belong to one genetic family.

To use the global study and data collection to help those connected with the name to fill in gaps in their individual histories.

Consequently we welcome all enquiries for further information so do please get in touch with us using the contact details at the foot of the page.

Variants

Today Ashpole, Ashpool and Ashbolt are the variants in use with Ashpole the most common although around the time of the hearth tax it seems to have been almost non-existent. At that time one will find Ashpoole or Ashbolt. One family used the variation Ashfull for a century but it now appears to be extinct.

Including misspellings, misrecordings and so forth we have probably counted around thirty to forty other permutations including occasional drifting into other ‘viable’ names such as Aspull, Aspel, Aspall.

Origin of the surname

At present our seven major trees suggest to us three likely points of origin for the name in England and Wales.

Firstly we have one tree going back as far as the 1280s, i.e. before surname formation and here it certainly appears to be of the locative type. This tree arises in Denbighshire and it has been suggested elsewhere that the name springs from the village of Aspull in Lancashire following English settlers in the wake of the Edwardian Conquest. Broadly over time the name progresses from Asphull, through Ashbwl, Ashpwl and Ashpoole to Ashpool.

Secondly in terms of sheer numbers of occurrences Bedfordshire is the major county. Here the name appears in the early 1600s as Ashbolt. By the 1700s it progresses to Ashbolt and Ashpole with the name spreading a little distance into the surrounding counties. By the 1800s Ashpole has become the dominant form, itself slipping into Ashpool in some families.

Thirdly in London the principle tree originates with an individual in 1670 together with numerous other earlier individual references all using Ashpoole. This tree’s usage quickly became interchangeable with Ashpole and by the 1720s only Ashpole survived.

In the second and third cases we’re presently inclined to agree with Reaney and Wilson who suggest devolvement from Archbold with the proviso perhaps of two independent arisings, one from England and one from Ireland. In the 16c in London in particular we have several clear instances of Archbold and Ashpoole being used interchangeably for the same person. More than one of these has clear Irish connections and many instances of Archbold can be found there for further investigation. The key in these latter two cases may be the old use of ‘ch’ where today we would use ‘s’ (as in ‘chirurgeon’ for surgeon) possibly suggesting that ‘Arch’ may have been pronounced soft rather than hard and thus making the first syllable more obviously a confusible when it came to be written down.

Historical occurrences

Adam de Asphull (earliest reference 1307) - appears to have been a post-Edwardian Welsh Conquest settler probably in the retinue of the De Greys of Ruthin.
Reverend Ellis Ashpoole (1667-1728) - headmaster of Brentwood School, Essex in the late 17th/early 18th centuries.
Sir Alfred Ashbolt (1882-1930) - Agent-General for Tasmania in the early 20th century. Knighted in 1925.
Alfred John Ashpole (1892-1990) - English musician, conductor and composer of Brass Band music. Works include Hinchingbrooke, The Rivals and Suite Ancienne.

Frequency of the name

We’ve identified 316 persons in the England & Wales census of 1881 and a further 54 within the US census of 1880. At that time there were perhaps a further 15 in New Zealand, 20 in Australia and a handful in South Africa.

These numbers had expanded considerably by the time of the 1901 census; 465 individuals identified in England and Wales, 90 in the US, 50 in New Zealand and Australia but still only a handful in South Africa.

Distribution of the name

Distribution in the UK in the 19th century seems to centre on three areas –

1) London – a single pedigree accounts for most Londoners in the mid-century. Present indications suggest around 15-20% of all Ashpoles nationally belong to this branch.

2) Bedfordshire – and an area five miles or so outside in the four surrounding counties of Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire. Once one goes back as far as 1750 five of the trees so far compiled emanate from this area suggesting they may well share common roots.

3) Essex/Surrey – a single family can be charted back to North Wales in the 13c immediately following the Edwardian conquest. Their descendants’ migration to several other areas of the country can be readily traced. We believe this branch only survives through an illegitimate female line itself in danger of becoming extinct.

We believe these three areas are sufficiently discreet to suggest three points of origin. Most other instances e.g. Yorkshire and overseas already trace back to these centres, having only emerged with the increased migration of the 19c. The most prevalent of these overseas examples is to be found in the USA where a very large majority of Ashpoles are descended from five brothers and cousins who emigrated in the 19c.

Despite several stories of the name having an Irish origin there is no trace of the name occurring in modern Ireland. There are earlier references however and these seem to be always connected with Archbold families. So the investigation here is likely to focus on the Archbold theory or perhaps an occasional derivation from Aspell. Isolated families in South Africa and Jamaica have not yet been connected to the main trees and we speculate these may be from Irish emigrants.

Data

Systematic data collection began in October 2002. Current status is (bracketed percentages show entries reconciled to the seven major trees):

Births, Marriages and Deaths database - GRO Indexes complete for England & Wales 1837 to 2005 and Ireland 1865 to 1958, ongoing for overseas. Contains 5,020 entries (97%).
Census Database - All indexed entries collected for the 1841 to 1901 UK censuses and 1850 to 1930 US censuses with substantial progress on other local ones. We presently have 2,610 names (98%).
Parish Registers Database - Initially sourced from the IGI but now heavily expanded to contain 2,479 entries (88%).
Wills Database - Includes all national probate and death duty records 1811 – 2004, PCC wills and admons pre 1858 plus a growing number of local probates. Over 860 persons are mentioned within the records (93%).
Miscellaneous Database - A growing collection of other references in national and local archives.
Pedigrees - The seven main trees account for most persons in the late 19c censuses and many earlier fragments represent our work in progress.

Additionally large amounts of Archbold data have been collected from Southern England to start testing the theory of it begetting our names.

DNA project

We have now initiated a Y-DNA study of males bearing any of the variants of our names. Its object is to determine how our major documentary pedigrees relate to each other. We warmly welcome anybody interested in participating in this exciting new development. Please get in touch through the contact details at the foot of the page.

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr Roger V C Harvey
7 Rowan Court,
Plantation Drive,
Sprowston,
Norwich
NR7 8JD
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 25 February 2008.