March update and collecting statistics

 I've been carrying out research on several 'non-PARRY' branches of my own family during this past month, and there's been very little progress specifically about PARRYs, or for the wider One-Name Study, so this will be quite a short update.

On the 15th March, I attended the Malvern Family History Show.  It was lovely to catch up with numerous members of the Guild of One-Name Studies, who were either there helping with the Guild stand, or on other family history society stands, presenting talks, or just having a day out, as I was.  

But I didn't take any photos, not even the lovely view of the hills in the sunshine, as we queued just before the show opened, which I now regret!

One of the aims of a One-Name Study is to develop "added value", going beyond the stories of individual families, in order to draw conclusions about the surname itself¹. One topic that I had hoped to write about this month concerns the frequency and distribution of the PARRY surname in British censuses.  Back in 2005, when my web site was still available, I had collected some preliminary information relating to the numbers of PARRYs in the censuses from 1851 - 1901, and created the following image, giving some indication of how the surname distribution had changed over those years: 

I'd also produced an attempt at mapping a modern (2002) distribution of the surname, which is available on the PARRY study profile, at https://one-name.org/name_profile/parry/ .

In the years since those were produced, the data for the other British censuses (1841, 1911, and 1921), as well as for the 1939 Register, has become available, and I have made a start on collecting the information from those, so that I can produce a more complete sequence of map images.

But things are never simple, are they?

One would think that it should be a fairly straightforward task, to do an exact search for the surname PARRY in the various genealogical databases, obtain totals per county, and then create the maps.  

But, no, it isn't!

I knew there was likely to be some differences between the totals provided by different companies - it is rare that they have been able to use data for a census that has already been transcribed.  So they have all undertaken their own transcription process, and therefore show differences due to the way the surname has sometimes been transcribed.  

Even if they had been able to use an 'already transcribed' dataset, as might have been possible with the 1881 census, which was initially transcribed in a joint project between the Federation of Family History Societies (now the Family History Federation), and the Genealogical Society of Utah, over the years, as users submit corrections to whichever company they might have searched in, the datasets would develop differences. (Although one might hope that this would eventually lead to a coalescing of the totals, as all the mistakes get picked up and corrected.)

But when you discover that the individual county totals from a particular company, when added together, don't even match the overall total that company shows for the census, then you realise a lot more work is going to be needed to obtain even moderately accurate figures!

I think some of the issues are to do with registration districts that overlap county boundaries, and therefore get included within both individual counties.  There are also variations in how the companies treat individual counties (for example, why does TheGenealogist lump Huntingdonshire and Rutland figures together?  They might be small counties, but they don't even border on each other.) 

Clearly, I need to do a lot more investigation before I can draw any conclusions, and post some updated distribution maps.

Notes and Sources

1. About One-Name Studies: https://one-name.org/one-name-studies/

Parry Postcards

 I had a nice surprise last year, when I was contacted by Colin Buck.  Back in the 1990s, Colin had created "The Postcard Index", with the simple idea of purchasing postcards from dealers, indexing them, and then, by advertising the Index, passing the cards on to people with an interest in the names.  Over the years, it seems many One-Namers (and no doubt other researchers, as well), benefitted from Colin's work.  But Colin told me that he was no longer collecting the cards, and was keen to pass on as many as possible, of those that he still held, to interested parties.

And so it was that, just a little while later, I gratefully received thirty nine postcards, which had been sent to people with the surname PARRY.

I'm looking forward to carrying out some research on the people the cards were sent to, but haven't yet decided on the most appropriate way of posting the information here.  To some extent, that will depend on what I can find out when I research them.

However, I thought I'd start with just a quick summary of the cards.

As one might expect, all were sent to UK addresses - twenty-one of the cards were sent to addresses in England, seventeen to Wales and one to Scotland.  Four of the addresses appear more than once.  

Thirty four of the cards show pictures of places.  Of these, the majority, eighteen, are places in England, six are in Wales, five in France, and then there's one each from Scotland, Germany, Jersey, Italy and California (this last one posted in England).

The following table shows the numbers of cards for various combinations of "picture country" to "destination country":

Of the five cards that did not have pictures of places, two were sending birthday wishes and one sending New Year wishes.  The final two?  Well, I imagine there's an interesting story behind each of them, but I'll let you make up your own minds as to what that might be (and no, I haven't tried the dumpling recipe.☺):

I will be posting more about the postcards over the coming months. Colin also kindly sent me a list of the cards relating to PARRYs that he no longer held.  Even though I don't know what was on the cards, it will still be of interest to follow up on the addresses that they were sent to.

Okay, I couldn't resist doing a little bit of research on the two posted above:

Regarding the first image, in 1851, there is a PARRY family living in a house called "Prysmawr" in Llanuwchlyn, Merionethshire, (a widowed Ann, with children Robert, aged 8, and Jane, aged 5).  However, they aren't in the property in the following censuses.  But, in the 1901 census, when a DAVIES family live there, there is a Thomas PARRY, aged 28, appearing as the farm bailiff.  This is possibly the Thomas PARRY who appears in the 1881, and the 1891, censuses for Llanuwchlyn, as one of the grandchildren of an Ellen JONES, living in a house called Wern. It is possible Thomas (aged 28 in the 1901 census, and already a widower), then remarries in 1901 to a Catherine EVANS, and they appear with their children in the 1911 and 1921 censuses, and then finally, just as a couple, in the 1939 Register, still in Llanuwchlyn.  In 1911, they are living in a house called "Penrhiw", and in 1921 and 1939, they are living in a house called "Llys Arthur".  But, since the postcard seems to be dated 1920, if it is the correct family, they potentially lived at "Prys" between these other two properties.

The second postcard is dated 1909.  Although there are PARRYs in Grimsbury at a later date (1921), no PARRYs appear to be associated with the Causeway.  However, intriguingly, an Edward Thomas PARRY marries an Alice May CAISBROOK in Banbury RD (which covers Grimsbury), in 1915. Alice was living in Merton Street, Grimsbury, in 1911, with her mother and siblings.  Alice and Edward PARRY are the PARRYs in Grimsbury in 1921. Edward, born about 1881 in Corwen, Merionethshire, was an engine driver for the Great Western railway in 1921.  He previously appeared as an railway engine stoker, boarding in Shrewsbury in 1901, and as a railway fireman, boarding in Brentford, Middlesex, in 1911. So potentially he might have been boarding in Grimsbury in 1909.  Perhaps there was just a little bit of "disguise" in the postcard, through the re-arrangement of their initials?

Notes and Sources

(To follow)

The 'sons of Harry' surnames

I've been reminded recently of how 'complicated' surname studies can be.  

At the end of last year, one of the Guild members posted that the Kindle version of the "Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland" was available free of charge to people in the UK, so I took advantage of this and downloaded it.¹

Obviously, I began by looking up PARRY.  No major surprises in the entry - although it is interesting to note that the frequency of the surname appears to be reducing, with only 27,276 PARRYs shown for Great Britain in 2011, as opposed to the 35,614 that were shown in the Taliesin-arlein database in 2002.² Even adjusting the figures in the Taliesin-arlein database, as was recommended in order to obtain a better estimate of the number of living PARRYs at that time, by allowing for potentially duplicated entries, deaths not yet removed, etc, only brought that 2002 figure down to 33,121. 

Clearly, the surname is not yet in danger of "extinction", but it is an intriguing reduction, nevertheless.

Both the distribution information - "widespread in Wales and England: esp. Lancs and N. Wales" - and the suggested origins - "Welsh: relationship name from ap Harry 'son of Harry'" - are as I would expect.

The list of early bearers has some interesting individuals, since one of the earliest entries is given as a Thomas Parrye, who appears in the 1377 Poll Tax for Birdforth, in North Yorkshire.  

I wonder who he was, since that's not exactly a PARRY hotspot!

As well as that reference from 1377 with the spelling as Parrye, there are several other variations to the spelling among the list of early bearers.  These include 'ap Harry', as would be expected, but also Apharry, Upharry, Aperry, Parrey, and Parey. While these might have been consistently used as surnames at the time, if I came across them in modern day records, I would suspect they were just a 'deviant' spelling, as those versions are no longer in common use.³

But it was the comment in the Dictionary to "Compare HARRY" that reminded me of just how complicated surname studies can be - and the fact that I really must try to resurrect my web pages this year!

Back in 2006, I was planning a web page about why not every "son of Harry" became a "Parry" in Wales.  In it, I commented on the changes to the patronymic system over the years, ie from the initial use of the terms ap or ab, meaning 'son of' (which led to the surname Parry, as the 'ap' and 'Harry' became combined), the subsequent loss of those terms between the names, despite maintenance of the patronymic system (which resulted in the surname 'Harry'), and how this was followed later by the addition of the possessive ending 's, ie "Harry's son", leading to surnames such as Harris, and Harries.  These changes combined with the adoption of fixed surnames, which occurred at different times, in different places, (and was also affected by a family's status and involvement with the English), to result in several different surnames, across the country, which all derive from the personal name, Harry.

One of the aims of a One-Name Study is to consider the origins of the surname, and its relevant variants.  Since Harry is a common form of Henry, the factors mentioned above also produced a variety of surnames based on that name. And, when one includes the Anglo-Norman use of the term 'fitz', which also means 'son of', from which surnames such as Fitzharris and Fitzhenry developed, one realises that it's not easy to produce a 'simple' summary of the 'sons of Harry' surnames!

Notes and References
1 "Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland," 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Patrick Hanks (Editor), Richard Coates (Editor), Peter McClure (Editor)  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Dictionary-Family-Britain-Ireland-ebook/dp/B01N41TEO3/ref=sr_1_1?
2 The Taliesin-arlein database held figures on the frequency of surnames in England and Wales based on information from the Office of National Statistics as at September 2002.  Unfortunately, although the base domain still exists (https://www.taliesin-arlein.net/), the link to the Surnames of England and Wales no longer works.
3 For information about the difference between surname variants and surname deviants see the Guild page at 
https://one-name.org/variants-and-deviants/

Conclusions from the Guild Blog Challenge 2024

 Having taken part in the Guild Blog Challenge that ran over the last five months of 2024, I thought it might be a good idea to review how things went, particularly picking up on some of the issues that I mentioned in my first post for the Challenge.¹

Frequency of posts

The aim was to produce at least one blog post a month, based on topics suggested by Melody McKay Burton, who set up the Challenge for us, following requests at a Guild Seminar.  I didn't succeed in sticking to the timescale - my first post was early, my second and fifth were on time (just!), but the third and fourth were both late. However, I did at least manage to write five posts. So that's a small success, because I didn't let the failure to post during October discourage me from continuing.

Correspondents

I'd expressed concern about the 'trade-off' in time, between communicating with others about the study as opposed to just getting on with the research, and about how difficult it can be to get the balance right.  The one comment I did receive on the blog, which aided my own understanding of an issue, was much appreciated. But, since I only notified the Challenge Group about my posts, I managed to avoid the issue of 'too much communication,' which might have arisen if I had publicised the posts more widely.

So this balance is still an issue I need to be mindful of in the future (especially since I did find myself getting a bit sidetracked trying to help a researcher who contacted me in November, regarding Parry ancestors that emigrated to the United States, potentially from North Wales - there are a lot of Parrys in North Wales!)

Content and Prompts

Pretty much in line with what I'd written before, I found that having the prompts for each month was useful in ensuring I attempted to write something - but some of the prompts were also almost 'stumbling blocks'. "Similarities and Differences" was one such topic, because I didn't think I knew enough about any particular individuals, or families, in the study, in order to do the detailed analysis that I considered would best fit the topic. This accounted for why October's post was so late, and why the post ended up as the wider overview of the "Parry vs Perry" surname.

How to overcome that?  Perhaps the key, at least for me, is to separate out the 'challenge' from the 'prompts'.  Having a challenge is an incentive - so my pact with myself, for the future, is that I will continue to try to write at least one post each month.  But, in order to keep the usefulness of prompts, without the possibility of stumbling blocks, I am going to give myself a choice - I am going to create a list of topics (probably based on those of past Guild challenges, and other genealogy blog series, such as the "52 ancestors" ²) so that I have a range of topics to choose from each time, with the proviso that I can't write about the same topic twice.

Organisation

I don't think the Challenge made any difference to this - it merely highlighted the fact that I'm still not as organised as I need to be, to make the study as good as it could be!

 

Final thoughts - Motivation

Well, I definitely feel more motivated to keep on posting, so that's progress!  

The Challenge didn't just provide an incentive to get blogging again, but it also reminded me of how much I enjoy researching the PARRYs, and passing on the results of that research.  So it has provided an answer to the question I posed - "Why am I writing this blog?"

It might seem strange to say that one conclusion from the Challenge is that I am going to be a bit more "selfish".  But, if research into family history, and the PARRY One-Name Study, really are the priorities for me that I want them to be, because I enjoy them, then that should be reflected in the time I put into them.  

So, rather than allowing myself to get involved with things that are often to achieve other people's (or organisation's) priorities, I'm going to aim to follow the advice of a well-known genealogist - "life is short – do genealogy first!"³

(And, finally, thank you to Melody for organising the Challenge - you doing so has made a difference!)

Notes and References

1. The first post of the Challenge: https://parry-one-name-study.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-challenge-of-blogging-guild.html

2. Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks": This is a link to sign up for the current series

https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks-new/ but many of the topics from previous years can easily be found by searching online. 

3. "Life is short – do genealogy first!": Geoff Rasmussen of Legacy Family Tree Webinars, 

https://familytreewebinars.com/