Topics

• About the Langley One-Name Study
• Variants
• Origin of the surname
• Historical occurrences
• DNA project
• Links
• Contact Details

About the Langley One-Name Study

The purpose of my study is to collect and share information about the Langleys of Northamptonshire, England and adjacent counties.

Langley is a fairly common surname, and we know from DNA testing that there are at least 13 genetically different Langley families. For that reason I have chosen to focus on my own family - the Langleys of Northamptonshire.

However, over the years I have collected information about Langleys from around the world and I correspond regularly with Langleys from other families. So if you have questions about Langley, please let me know and I will do my best to help.

Variants

I am also interested in variants of Langley, such as Langly, Langely and Langlie,

Origin of the surname

The Dictionary of American Family Names (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4) lists the following three potential sources for the LANGLEY surname:

1. Habitational name from any of the numerous places named with Old English lang ‘long’ + leah ‘wood’, ‘glade’; or a topographic name with the same meaning.

2. English: from the Old Norse female personal name Langlíf, composed of the elements lang ‘long’ + líf ‘life’.

3. Americanised spelling of French Langlais

Historical occurrences

A famous medieval Langley is Thomas Langley (1363-1437), Chancellor to several Lancastrian kings and Bishop of Durham. A biography of him by Ian Sharman is worth reading (ISBN 0-953-7657-0-9).

More recently, Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906) was the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute and a pioneer of manned flight.

DNA project

The Langley Surname DNA Project has its own site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Langley_Surname/.

Links

I have set up a website to store and share information about the Langleys of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire. This is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nthwkslangley.

Please also visit the site for our Langley neighbours in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk which is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/langley-cambridge-suffolk/

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr Aidan Langley
53a Cranley Road,
Guildford,
Surrey
GU1 2JW
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 13 January 2012.

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