Close One-Name Study (with variants Closs, Clowes, Clowser, Cluse)

(Click on picture to enlarge) James Close (b Westhoughton 1856, d Horwich 1938)

Close
One-Name Study

Topics

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

About the Close One-Name Study

I like to change the picture (top right) from time to time. If you have a picture of your CLOSE ancestor or a related location, please get in touch.

Like many one-namers, I began with an interest in my own immediate family which aroused curiosity about the bigger picture. I am in the process of building a comprehensive database of CLOSE (and variants) births, marriages, deaths and census records for England & Wales, with a view to reconstructing family lines and analysing this information to identify patterns. If you are researching CLOSE, CLOSS, CLOWES, CLOWSER, CLUSE or CLUES I would be very pleased to hear from you. I will also endeavour to answer your queries connected with these surnames – but please be patient as this study still has a long way to go.

While I'm concentrating on England and Wales, I'd be delighted to work with you if you are collecting data from any other part of the world.

Variants

Variants of CLOSE which I have registered are: CLOSS, CLOWES, CLOWSER and CLUSE. Other surnames for which I have a small number of records are CLEWS, CLEWES, CLOWS, CLUCE, CLUES etc etc. At the moment I am concentrating my efforts on CLOSE, and would be delighted to hear from you if you would like to take on the task of collecting data on any of the other variants, which I would be glad to publish here in my Guild archive pages for the benefit of anyone with an interest in these names.

Origin of the surname

The surname CLOSE has two possible origins: it could be topographical, referring to an enclosed place such as a courtyard or farmyard, or a nickname for someone reserved or secretive.

CLOWES was originally pronounced as CLUES or CLUSE. Is your name CLOWES? How do you pronounce it?

Historical occurrences

Early references to the name include:

1214 William le Clos (Curia Regis Rolls, Cambridge)
1296 Nicholas de Clos (Subsidy Rolls, Sussex)
1327 Thomas del Close (Subsidy Rolls, Yorkshire)
1355-1362 Sir Thomas del Close, Rector of Brougham, Westmorland
1401-1409 John Cloos, attorney (Calendar of Assize Rolls, Calendar of Plea & Memoranda Rolls, London)
1417 John Close (sen. & jun.), Robert Close, soldiers (http://medievalsoldier.org)
1448-1450 Nicholas Cloos D.Th. Prebendary of Wedmore Quarta
1450-1452 Nicholas Close (or Cloos), Bishop of Carlisle
1470 death of Stephen Close (or Cloos), Archdeacon of Carlisle
1479-1501 John Cloos, Dean of Chichester
1491-92 Rychard Close, warden, St Mary at Hill, City of London

Please let me know if you hear of other early references.

Frequency of the name

Frequency of the surnames in England & Wales in the 19th Century and the start of the 20th.

-----------------1841-------1861--------1881---------1901

CLOSE........1,530........1,553.........2,439............3,060
CLOWES........790...........924.........1,644............2,296
CLOWS............63............24.............56................22
CLOSS.............87............93.............98..............133
CLOWSER.........71............67.............87................99
CLUES.............91............89.............96...............126
CLUSE.............53............54.............39................54

It is estimated that the number of individuals in England in 2002 with these surnames was as follows:

CLOSE............4,516
CLOWES.........3,242
CLOWS.................0
CLOSS...............139
CLOWSER............95
CLUES................109
CLUSE...................9

If you are one of these, then I would be delighted to hear from you.

Distribution of the name

Distribution of the surnames in England & Wales in 1861 was as follows:

Counties with over 100 CLOSE occurrences were: Yorkshire - mainly in Swaledale -(415), Durham (205), Lancashire centred around Wigan and Liverpool (159), and Gloucestershire centred around Minchinhampton (142). A total of 113 occurred in Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, mainly in and around Collyweston.
CLOWES occurred most in Staffordshire (330), Cheshire (159) and Lancashire (126).
The most CLOSS occurrences were in Caernarvonshire (20), believed to be descendants of a Swaledale CLOSE, Middlesex (15) and Monmouthshire (10), with single figures in just 5 other counties of England & Wales.
CLOWSER was centred in and around London: Surrey (27), Middlesex (21) and Sussex (13), with just three individuals outside these counties.
CLUSE was also mainly found in South-East England: Surrey (14) and Middlesex (11)

Do you know of any other 'hotspots' for these surnames?

Data

Follow the links to search for data covering

CLOSE and variants births 1837-1950
CLOSE and variants marriages 1837-1930
CLOSE and variants deaths 1837–1930.
CLOSE and variants wills and administration 1858-1930.
CLOSE and variants census data

I have recently extended the births to 1950, and marriages and deaths are listed up to 1930. I'm making steady progress in archiving census records - over 25,000 entries so far (including household members with other surnames) but there is still much to do. However, the 1851, 1871 and 1891 CLOSE listings for the whole of England and Wales are now complete.

Please let me know if you find any errors or if you can add further information. I'm grateful to those who have contacted me recently with additional information on CLOSE families.

If you don't find what you were looking for, please contact me (details below) and I may be able to help.

Links

There is further detailed information about some individual CLOSEs on my CLOSE Family History website.

I have also set up a CLOSE & variants page in MyHeritage. Some of the relationships still need to be verified, and if you can confirm or correct what is there, that would be really helpful. Visitors are very welcome!

Here are a few more weblinks – I can’t comment on the reliability of the content, but you just might find something of interest:

CloseAncestry.com – lots of information

constantly being added to this site on Yorks, Lancs and other CLOSE families. Thanks, Andy, for a really useful resource!

DNA project for males with CLOSE or variant surname.
Nicola Close's website - her Berkshire and Somerset CLOSE ancestors

Please get in touch if you know of a CLOSE & variants website which ought to be listed here - and let me know if any of the above links become broken. Thanks!

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mrs Margaret Southgate
10 Pencoed Av,
Pontypridd
CF37 4AN
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 13 January 2012.

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