Topics

• About the Shenton 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 Shenton One-Name Study

The Shenton One-Name study started, loosely, about 1994, triggered by simple curiosity. I was using the LDS set of 1881 UK Census CDs, tracing my immediate Shenton ancestors in Derbyshire. The CD query process involved simply entering the desired surname and the county of interest. After receiving my Derbyshire results (69 Shentons), I casually started a new query of “Shenton” and “All Counties”. The results (1,923 Shentons) started me wondering if and how all these Shentons might be connected. Several years ago another researcher and I decided to try to answer the ‘if and how’, at least for England and Wales, and initiated a web site focused on all the Shentons in the seven (now eight) available Censuses. The Shenton name was officially registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies in October 2009.

Variants

No variants of the name are registered at this time. Two candidate variants – Shinton and Shanton – may be considered at a later date.

Origin of the surname

To be researched – several conflicting stories exist.

Historical occurrences

Grand fame, so far, does not appear to be a common feature in the Shenton bloodline. A few of the more notable Shentons include:

• Shenton of Singapore (1879-1962). Shenton Thomas Whitelegge Thomas (“Sir Shenton”) was Governor General of Singapore when it fell to the Japanese in world War II. Unfortunately for fame and the Shenton surname, 'Shenton' was Sir Shenton’s given name, although he was descended from Shentons.

• Sir George Shenton (1842-1909). Sir George was the first mayor of the city of Perth, Australia.

• Edward Shenton (1895-1977). Edward was an American author and illustrator, probably best known for his illustration of the novel The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

• Samuel Shenton. Samuel was the founder and first president of the modern-day Flat Earth Society.

Frequency of the name

According to an ONS database there are some 3,814 Shentons in England and Wales as of September 2002, making it the 2091st most common name in England and Wales. For comparison, the ONS database reports 541 Shinton and 7 Shanton occurrences. No statistics are available, but the Shenton surname seems even less common in the United States.

Distribution of the name

Counts of the Shenton surname from the most recent Census records posted in Ancestry.com – which include a small number of “alternate names”, typically maiden names of married women – show 2,575 in England (1901 Census). Historically, according to the Censuses from 1841 to 1901, Staffordshire has been the home of half or nearly half of recorded Shentons. In 1901 there were 1,098 in Staffordshire, followed by Lancashire (386), Cheshire (236), Leicestershire (140), and Derbyshire (113).

Most recent published Censuses from other counties – based also on Ancestry.com data, and with the same “alternate Names” issue – show:

• 387 in the United States (1930 Census), of which 121 were in the state of Maryland

• 36 in Wales (1901 Census), as well as 20 Shintons

• 21 in Canada (1911 Census)

• 4 in Scotland (1901 Census)

Data

A considerable amount of data, primarily related to England, has been collected in a personal database and files (spreadsheets). I will be working to determine the what-and-how of uploading this material to the Archives of the Guild web site.

Current collection includes:

• All Shenton BMD entries from the General Register Offices for England and Wales, as downloaded from the FreeBMD web site, except for recent additions and updates to that site.

• All Shenton BMD entries available from the few counties in England that have county-level transcription efforts and post their results on free web sites (Cheshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Wiltshire, and Yorkshire). These county efforts are generally ‘works in progress’ and every effort will be made to keep current with results as posted.

• All IGI parish records (‘extracted records’ only) as posted on the familysearch.org web site, plus a limited number of similar records that are not available on familysearch.org but have been personally viewed (in microfilm).

• All Census records from households containing one or more Shentons from the 1841-1901 England and Wales Censuses.

• Some Census records from households containing one or more Shentons from the 1860-1930 United States Censuses.

• A very limited number of wills and grants of probates of Shentons in England

• A very limited number of copies of actual vital record (births, marriages, and deaths) certificates of Shentons in England and the United States.

DNA project

A Shenton Y-DNA Surname group was initiated in 2008, and I have been actively soliciting members. To date the current population is very small, so I am looking for more participants. Analysis of the limited number of participants shows one reasonably distinct DNA group, but no close associations.

Links

My original Shenton Family web site contains details on three parallel Shenton lines from about 1700, plus two other shorter lines.

A site dedicated to a collaborative effort to identify and link all the Shentons in the 1841-1911 Censuses is a work in progress, with over 3,600 unique Shentons as of November 2011, based primarily on Census, parish and BMD records, plus limited amounts of Probate indices, actual BMD certificates and other sources.

The Shenton Y-DNA Surname study web site contains basic DNA results of a small number (so far) of male Shenton participants.

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr Scott Shenton
2725 N Hwy-A1A #301,
Indialantic,
Florida
32903
USA
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.