Topics

• About the Tremethick One-Name Study
• Variants
• Origin of the surname
• Historical occurrences
• Frequency of the name
• Distribution of the name
• Data
• Links
• Contact Details

About the Tremethick One-Name Study

The Tremethick study commenced a number of years ago and contains information provided by a number of people. I would particularly like to thank Barbara Fernandez, Russell Reed, Christine Randall, Andrea Kerman & Donald Tremethick for their support and information.

As with many one name studies this study grew out of an attempt to trace family ancestors. The study was registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies in 2009

Variants

The registered variants of the name are Tremethick and Tremethack. Other variants exist with a variety of spellings, one certainly being due to a Cornishman appearing in a Liverpool Census. Tremethack is the common spelling pre 1800 and Tremethick from around 1850. Both spellings can be found in the early 1800s. Richard son of James Tremethake was buried at Madron 10 Dec 1578 followed by Thomas (also a son of James Tremethake) 12 Dec 1578. Phillimore Marriages for Cornwall has John Tremethick and Elizabeth Jose at Wedron on 12 Oct 1579. The Madron Parish Register has a John Tremethack and Elizabeth marriage 12 Nov 1581. In the Madron Baptism Register Jane daughter of John James Tremethack was baptised 3 June 1593. Bennett Tremethack can be found on the IGI at Madron in 1600.

Origin of the surname

The family was originally found in the West Penwith area of Cornwall, and the name is said to be derived from tre-methag, meaning doctor's farm which was supposedly located near the present Tremethick Cross (near Penzance)

Historical occurrences

Edwin Tremethick was one of the signatories of the 1853 Bendigo Goldfields Petition.

From The Cornish Language in North America by Alan M. Kent (Open University, United Kingdom)

'Cornish continued to be spoken in west Cornwall for much of the nineteenth century. Lyon’s research in particular demonstrating a small yet notable continuity from Dolly Pentreath and William Bodinar through to people with knowledge of traditional Cornish, such as Ann Wallis, John Tremethick, Mrs. Berryman/Quick, Jane Barnicoate, Bernard Victor, John Davey Senior, Jacob Care, Elizabeth Vingoe and Mr. Mann'

Detective Senior Constable R.M. Tremethick was elected the first full time secretary of the Police Association of South Australia (1963)

D J Tremethick has had medical papers published in Nature and other learned Journals

Mary Jane Tremethick is Assistant Professor - HPER Northern Michigan University

Frequency of the name

The British 19th Century Surname Atlas, based on the 1881 census, gives a frequency of 8 per 100,000. The majority of UK Tremethicks being found in Cornwall, Lacashire & Devon.

Placing Tremethick in the family search box of the the Church of Latter Day Saints site gives 33 Tremethicks in the UK 1881 census and 5 in the 1880 USA census.

Ancestry has (for UK Tremethick families) 14% in Yorkshire, 14% Warwickshire, 18% Devon and 54% in Cornwall in 1891.

The ONS 2002 survey shows 30 Tremethicks representing about 0.000055% of the UK population with the name ranked as 70023 out of 270,00 names

Distribution of the name

Early Tremethicks were located in West Penwith and the men were largely fisherman, miners or masons. In the 1800s Tremethicks could be found in Australia and the USA, (particularly mining areas), as well as in the UK.

Data

The Tremethick entries from the General Register Offices for England & Wales (since 1837) to 2005 have been collected.

All grants of probate since 1858 to 2006 in England and Wales have also been recorded and in a number of instances Will copies have been collected.

Census details, (Mainly UK but some USA), from 1841 have been collected in many instances

Links

Two websites with Cornish material are particularly helpful with transcribed information. These are

The West Penwith Resources site

and the

Cornwall Online Census Project

The Flaxman site has a number of West Penwith family trees.

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr Bob Boutland
E-mail:

This page last updated 16 August 2009.

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