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(Click on picture to enlarge) Thomas Edmund ('Guy') WINNEY in 1937 (Photo TWJ Winney)

Winney
One-Name Study

Topics

About the Winney One-Name Study

The WINNEY One-Name study was started in April 2006 in anticipation of my retirement in 2007 and in support of my own Winney Family History research using information gathered since 2003.

The main objectives are to:

Variants

Are WINNEY, WHINNEY, WINNIE, WINNY, and WHINNY broadly in order of frequency of occurrence. Spelling has varied over the centuries. More than one spelling can appear on the same record and some individuals changed the spelling that they used during their lives. Antique spellings include WHINNE, WHYNNE, WYNNE, WYNEUE and WYNY.

Origin of the surname

The Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames suggests a possible origin for WINNEY as old English “Joy (of) Battle”, and for WHINNEY a place name “Dweller on the whin covered hill” perhaps Winnew in Thursley (Cumb) or from Whinnah in Lamplugh Cumb). Early examples of the surname given in the dictionary from subsidy rolls are Robert WYNEUE and Benedict WYNYEUE 1327 (Suffolk) and John de WHINHOW 1332 (Cumberland) and it is likely that these are the earliest recorded instances of the surname in England and indicate at least two possible origins.

In the USA the name is considered to be of Dutch origin from the earliest European settlers. More recent immigrants with the surname are recorded as originating from England, Ireland, and even Germany.

Place names in England include Winney’s Down on Dartmoor (grid square SX 6381) and Whinnyfield Wood in Suffolk (grid square TL9841), although the latter may be an indication of past land use rather than any connection with the surname.

Historical occurrences

More Recent Occurrences that may be found on the internet include:-

Frequency of the name

The name is uncommon but not rare. The England and Wales censuses indicate totals of all variants of about 250 in 1841, 440 in 1881, 550 in 1891 and 600 in 1901. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has records of 25 men killed in the two World Wars, including a civilian casualty. ONS statistics for 2002 indicate that at that time there may have been about 900 people living in England and Wales with the name (of whom over 2% were my close relatives). Registered births from 1984 to 2004 are about 270 (of whom over 3% are my close relatives). Frequency of the name in the US 1990 census was less than 0.0005% of the total population and so too small to show a total, but this percentage of the total US population could be as many as 1700 people. Ancestry.com reports over 4000 entries in all the released US censuses and nearly 1400 matches in the US immigration records, but these also include WINNE.

Distribution of the name

In the England and Wales 1881 census, using the surname atlas software, the major clusters of the name are in Suffolk and Essex; Gloucester, Herefordshire and the Welsh borders; and across the north of the country in Cumberland, Northumberland and Durham. These three concentrations also appear in the Boyd’s marriage index of the 16th and 17th centuries. In the London 1881 census most originated from Essex and Suffolk, but also from Oxford and other near Counties. The variant with the H predominated in the North Country and variants without the H appeared more frequently in the South. Other records of the name are in Scotland and Ireland. Present day distribution of the name also includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the USA, and Germany.

Data

At present relatively little data is held and much of this is of WINNYs originating in the Dedham Vale area (popularly known as Constable Country) of south Suffolk.

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr Peter Winney
94 Broadmoor Lane,
Upper Weston,
Bath,
NE Somerset
BA1 4LB
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 8 March 2008.