Coad One-Name Study

(Click on picture to enlarge) Coins showing the Three Moorhen Code crest, minted in Exeter

Coad
One-Name Study

Topics

About the Coad One-Name Study
Variants
Origin of the surname
Frequency of the name
Data
DNA project
Links
Contact Details

About the Coad One-Name Study

The study aims to codify the genealogy of all English COADs etc and their descendants, with the assistance of many family researchers. We provide assistance to Irish CODD family researchers who are attempting reconstruction of their families.

Variants

Coade, Code, Coode, Cood

Origin of the surname

The name appeared for the first time around 1600, just SE of Exeter in Devon, apparently as a variant of COWDE or COARD, both originally derived from Cowherd. Within 30 years it had spread across Devon and Cornwall, eventually replacing almost all similar names. Even in the 1800s, about 20 families changed their name to COAD or COOD (mostly CODDs around London).

Frequency of the name

There were about 750 Coads etc in the 1841 English Census and about 900 in 1901. Over 80% of these were in Cornwall. There are many more descendants in Australia, the USA, Canada, NZ and South Africa.

Data

The onename study consists of six separate draft trees on worldconnnect.rootsweb. The main research tool is a spreadsheet containing all incidences of Coad etc births/baptisms and marriages, sorted by forename. There is also a Word file detailing the families by parish (and in Australia, by State); along with a rough coverage of all similar names COARD, COYDE, CROAD, COWDE, CUDE and CLOAD.

DNA project

The CoadCoode DNA project had been operating since November 2006. So far we have determined six unrelated families (3 in Cornwall, 2 in Devon, and the Wexford CODD descendants.

www.familtreedna.com/public/coadcoode