Topics

• About the Brackstone One-Name Study
• Variants
• Origin of the surname
• Distribution of the name
• Data
• DNA project
• Links
• Contact Details

About the Brackstone One-Name Study

The Brackstone One-name study started c 1985 and it grew out of a long search of my own ancestry in the Poole area in Dorset. I had made contact with some relatives and traced the family back to Lambeth. I came up against a brick-wall and I am still there, so I started sideways tracing all the relatives in Poole and this has evolved into a One-Name study registered with the guild in 1994

Variants

The registered variants are Brackston Braxton Braxtone Braxstone and Breakstone.

If one is looking for a particular Brackstone especially in a census and you cannot find them, then try 'Blackstone', I found my family in Lambeth under that name. A possible reason is that in our language there are very few words beginning brack, namely bracken,bracket and brackish all words used infrequently and therefore rarely heard. On the other hand the word black is used extensively especially as a prefix, so we hear the sound more often and are much more likely to mishear and misspell the surname. If you add in variations of dialect and any background noise then the name is misspelled and even today I have a constant battle to get my name spelled correctly.

Origin of the surname

The name Brackstone suggests an occupation so one would expect a widespread occurence, but see below under distribution. As yet I have not located a place name in the high density area.

Distribution of the name

In the 1881 census and the IGI , the epicentre is in or around the triangle bounded by Marlborough in NE. Wilts. to Hungerford in SW. Berks. and Andover in NW Hants. with other small centres in London and Bristol The groups in Durham, Roxboroughshire, and Glamorgan are migrants from Hampshire

The Braxton name seems to predominate in Wilts.

There is a Braxton County in West Virginia and this variant seems to be the dominant form and the largest group in the USA., in the world even, where the name is also used as a christian name

Data

A lot of the early BMD entries from the GRO. have been recorded.

The One-Name study has many marriage partners from 1837 to 1911 together with many county BM+D indexes

Some pedigrees have been lodged.

DNA project

The names Brackstone/Braxton have been registered with FamilyTreeDNA with the aim of finding out if the different branches are related and if the 2 major variants have a single or dual origin

Links

http://www.familytreedna.com

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr Rodney V Brackstone
17 Amy Street,
Cutgate,
Rochdale,
Lancashire
OL12 7NJ
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 11 September 2008.

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