Greathead One-Name Study

(Click on picture to enlarge) Granpas painting in his autograph album. I can see the family resemblance !!!

Greathead
One-Name Study

Topics

About the Greathead 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 Greathead One-Name Study

My maiden name was GREATHEAD

My mother died three years after my father. Both were effectively only children. So I grew up 'not doing families.' Imagine my surprise when I found photographs amongst my parents' belongings with phrases like Uncle Henry, Aunt Lizzie on the back. Just who were these people. Then I found a picture of a grave stone, just who takes official pictures of a grave, and then I found a picture of the vicar who apparently married my great grandparents. I had to find out more.

Like most people it took me some time to find out how to start my researches properly and by then I had amassed a huge database of Greatheads, very few seemed to be related. One visit to a Family History Fair in 1997 and a chat to a lovely 'GOON' convinced me to turn my database into a one named study. This will include eventually everyone who enjoyed the name by birth, adoption, marriage or by choice, both living and dead, wherever they live or lived in the world.

Variants

The information in my study covers all occurrences of the surname GREATHEAD worldwide, as opposed to a particular pedigree. It also contains the variants GREATHEED, GREATHED, GREETHEAD, GRETHED and GREATED.

Origin of the surname

The name Greathead appears in London and Whitby, in the 14th and 15th Century. It seems to mean just that; someone with a remarkably large head, in the real or perhaps colloquial sense, or maybe they enjoy rather a large ego. I like to think maybe the large head contains brains used to achieve what ever we choose to do. The name is believed to have a single source somewhere in the North of England but this has not yet been definitively proved, unless you hold that vital piece of the jigsaw. I believe each the variants do relate to one definite area or class of person and may have come about through dialect. I have set up a DNA Project to help maybe resolve this issue

Historical occurrences

We have the usual mix of miners, farmers, sailors, adventurers, craftsmen, religious leaders, tradesman and the name has been associated with at least two great engineers.

The oldest known Freemason - Matthew

One of the 1820 South African settlers - James Henry

The inventor of the first self righting lifeboat - Henry

The inventor of the Greathead shield - James Henry

Frequency of the name

Based on the United Kingdom census returns there were 633 with the surname Greathead resident in the UK in 1901, 562 in 1891, 492 in 1881, 447 in 1871, 461 in 1861, 398 in 1851 and 428 in 1841.

Distribution of the name

The major numbers of Greatheads in 1881 can be found in Durham (25%), Yorkshire (20%) and Warwickshire (11%). A similar trend exists in both 1901 and 2001.

Data

I have details of all Greathead entries in the GRO indexes for England, Wales and overseas and have hopefully collected those of the variants

I have the New Zealand birth, marriage and death index information up to 1997.

I have copies of the enumeration sheets for 1901, 1891, 1881, 1871, 1861, 1851 and 1841 UK census, 1870 through to 1930 US census and 1911 Canadian census.

I have many birth, death and marriage certificates.

I have collected copies of all the PCC wills that I can locate in TNA. The largest one I have is 63 pages long. I have creating a spreadsheet of the entries in the index of wills after 1858 at First Avenue

I have copies of all the WW1 medal cards from the TNA

I would be very pleased to help anyone with an interest in the Greathead family seeking information on their ancestors and would also be delighted to receive information, photographs, certificates etc. that might assist me in my quest to help grow the Greathead family tree and find that elusive first Ancestor. I am pretty sure he was not called Adam!!

DNA project

Finally I set up a DNA project Greathead DNA Project It is in the initial stages and I do urge you to take part in this exciting project

Links

I have created a Greathead one-name website which is updated at on the last day of every month and contains much of the information from my database. It does not contain narrative of 'living' people

I also maintain a weblog do visit to read about my daily activities

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mrs Jan Cooper
E-mail:

This page last updated 25 February 2008.