Medlock One-Name Study

Medlock
One-Name Study

Topics

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

About the Medlock One-Name Study

My GGGGG Grandfather was John Medlock, who lived in Tempsford in Bedfordshire (thus the photo of the milestone above). He was born John Madlock in 1751 in Eltisley, Cambridgeshire. After moving to Tempsford, his name was spelt Medlock. John's ancestry has been traced back to Thomas Madlocke of Eltisley, a husbandman (smallholder) who's will was proved in 13 Dec 1559. John Medlock first married Susan/Susannah Guy, b. 1755. They had four children but only two, Nathaniel, b. -1782 (my GGGG Grandfather) and William, survived. Susan/Susannah died in 1782. John remarried, to Ann Emery and they had seven children.

I began to accumulate a lot of data researching the above and, when I became aware of one-name studies, my interest in them started to grow. By coincidence the guild of One-Name Studies held their annual conference in 2004 in Wyboston - a mile or so from Tempsford! I could not resist the chance of going to the conference (and learning a lot), visiting the Bedford & Luton Archives and going to Tempsford (and All Saints churchyard, where there are two plots of Medlock gravestones). I became a member of the Guild two weeks before the conference - THE MEDLOCK ONS was born!

Variants

Medlock and Madlock(e) are registered with the Guild and data on the occurence of these is being systematically collected.

Spelling & other possible variants - no data is being collected on these (except Medlocks):

Medlocks, Medlook, Meadlock (an expected variant given the 'meadow' link to the surname (i.e. suffix 'med' / 'mead' = meadow), Modlock, Mudlock, Medlicott (this is a locative surname from Medlicott, Salop, meaning 'dweller in the cottage by the meadow' - it is not a Medlock variant), Maddocke:, Meadock, Meddock, Meddocke, Meddocks, Meddox

Matlock (another locative surname from Matlock/Matlock Bath, Derbyshire) - not considered to be a variant of Medlock in the UK but strong support for this as a spelling variant in the USA including a DNA study: www.ancestry.com/Matlock/DNA.html.

Origin of the surname

It is often wrongly assumed that 'Medlock' is a locative surname derived from a place name i.e. the River Medlock, near Manchester, England (once a very polluted river due to the industrial revolution, but now after much restoration, most of the Medlock Valley and River are now very attractive). There is strong evidence that it evolved from the, now very rare, surname 'Madlock'.

The name MEDLOCK (referring specifically to the River Medlock) means 'meadow stream' or 'the river that flows through a meadow'. The Old English (O.E.) word for 'meadow' was 'med' as in the O.E. 'meduwyrt' and later 'medaewart' or meadowsweet (a wild flower). As with other surnames with the prefix 'Med'/'Mead', e.g. Medland/Meadland ('dweller by the meadow land') and Meadows ('dweller by the meadow'), the name Medlock has a 'meadow' connection. In O.E., the main flow of a river was called the 'midlac' (the full or middle stream); 'lac', 'lacu' or 'lacau' meant 'stream'. The river Medlock is recorded as often being 'in spate' (i.e. flooding the meadows) - in the 17th century it was recorded that the journey from Ashton-under-Lyne to Manchester was difficult because of the flooding of the river Medlock. So, the O.E. word 'medlacu', 'medlac' or 'medelac' (meadow stream) has been suggested as the probable source of the river-name MEDLOCK.

'Place Names of Lancashire', provides later references. By 1322, medelac had evolved into 'medlake' or 'medeloke' (Lancashire Inquests, Extants and Feudal Aids). And, in c.1540, into 'medlok', (The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-43; Ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith, London 1907).

There is a reference in 'The Description of Britaine' by William Harrison in the Holinsheads Chronicle, 1577 to the river 'medocke'. The change in spelling was perhaps due to association with 'lock' (a lock being an enclosed body of water such as a river or canal - not quite the modern meaning of the word). However, the suffix 'lock' had many meanings. It was used along with laik or lake to mean 'to play' and a 'madlock' was a 'wild, giddy person'! (it's not surprising that Madlocks from Eltisley in Cambridge wanted to change their surname to Medlock!). In Lancashire, if men were not working down the pit (coalmine), i.e. taking a shift off, then people would ask 'are you laiking/lakeing today?' Perhaps the word laik developed from the O.E. lacau to mean someone who was 'in spate' like the river and going a bit wild! So there we have it - the probable evolution of the river name Medlock. However, people living around the river Medlock do not seem to have acquired that name, i.e. 'Medlock' does not appear to be a locative surname. In Parish Registers and in the 1841/1851 Censuses, for example, there aren't the Medlock's in or around Manchester that you would expect. Instead, they were concentrated in the counties of Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Northamptonshire - all a long way from the river Medlock but, interestingly, in areas prone to flooding. It is possible that Medlocks employed on the land in these areas originally came from the Manchester area (and all of them left? - this seems unlikely) or acquired the name of Medlock or variant by association with their work on meadow land and originated not from the Manchester area but from various locations in the above counties. If such were the case, then DNA analysis could reveal that there are several un-related lines of people with the surname Medlock and finding this out is one of the future aims of THE MEDLOCK ONS.

Frequency of the name

The numbers of individuals with the surname Medlock in the Censuses for England & Wales were:

1841: data collection not complete.

1851: 247

1861: 273 - an 11% increase from 1851.

1871: 327 - a 20% increase from 1861.

1881: 466 - a 43 % increase from 1871. A frequency of 0.00156% of the population.

1891: 496 - a 6% increase from 1881.

1901: 566 - a 14 % increase from 1891.

The above figures do not necessarily agree with figures quoted on genealogy websites. This is because, to arrive at the above figures, the original census image for each individual has been checked and cross-referenced with adjacent censuses and birth records and errors & omissions identified and corrected.

Distribution of the name

In the 1881 census there were the following number of individuals with the surname Medlock in each county in England: Middlesex = 84; Bedfordshire = 63; Norfolk = 62; Yorkshire, West Riding = 44; Huntingdonshire = 43; Northamptonshire = 31; Cambridgeshire = 32; Lancashire = 27; Kent = 13; Lincolnshire = 12; Surrey = 12; Sussex = 11; Yorkshire, East Riding = 5; Hertfordshire = 2; and 1 each in the City of London, Jersey, Devonshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Warwickshire.

Although there were more in Middlesex than elsewhere, their density within Middlesex was low, at 3 Medlocks per 100,000 population - they did not originate there! Many moved from e.g. Tempsford in Bedfordshire and elsewhere after the building of the railways in the ~1850s. The most densely populated county was Huntingdonshire with 74 Medlocks per 100,000, followed by Bedfordshire (42 per 100,000), then Cambridgeshire (16 per 100,000) and Norfolk (14 per 100,000).

Data

THE MEDLOCK ONS, beginning as it did in 2004, is in it's infancy. Systematic collection of UK data on Births, Marriages & Deaths since 1837 is complete for all of the years for which figures are available. Pre-1837 Baptisms, Marriages and Burials from Parish Registers is on-going. All Censuses (1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 & 1901) are complete, the 1841 mostly. Data is stored on computer on forms which record details of Medlock Families (entries in parish records, GRO entries and all relevant censuses, wills etc.); where available photographs are included (portraits, gravestone etc.). In addition each individual is recorded in date of baptism/birth order on an Excel spreadsheet; marriages, children, burial/death and other data where known are slowly being added with hyperlinks to original sources.

A small but growing number of pedigrees supplied by Medlock researchers forms a very valuable part of the collection - helping me to link the generations. Data on other countries is progressing slowly. Some contacts in the USA and Canada have proved very useful but more are welcome. An attempt at systematic data collection from the USA, starting with very early records, has commenced but some help with this would be very welcome.

Unwanted copies of birth, marriage and death certificates relating to Medlocks (and variants) are always very gratefully received. Any information supplied to THE MEDLOCK ONS will be indexed to show the source and will not be transmitted to third parties without approval.

Links

A website is being planned and will hopefully appear in the not-to-distant future. Watch this space!

A Medlock DNA Study is being organised with DNA Heritage (www.dnaheritage.com) and will hopefully commence soon. Please contact me if you would like to be included in the DNA study.

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr Victor F P Medlock
10 Raymer Road,
Penenden Heath,
Maidstone,
Kent
ME14 2JQ
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 25 February 2008.