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/

Weekly round-up 20 Feb 2015

Two new databases

At the end of last week, a message was posted regarding the research being carried out as a result of the Crossrail excavation in London.  This research has included the compilation of what is described as “the first extensive register of people buried at Bedlam”.  On checking the database, I found it contains 2 Parrys and 1 Parrey:

Thomas Parrey, 17th August 1593, St Mary Woolnoth

John Parry, 4th September 1608, St Dunstan in the East (by the Tower)

Ann Parry, 1st December 1690, St Peter le Poor

Although the burial ground was not associated with a parish church, it appears the burials were still recorded in the various parish church records, rather than the burial ground having its own records.  The above three records all originally came from the London Metropolitan Archives and I know many of their records are also on sites such as Ancestry, so it will be interesting to see if these three burials appear elsewhere - but that's a task for another day (as is trying to identify where these three fit!)

More information about the burial ground can be found at:

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/sustainability/archaeology/bedlam-burial-ground-register

The second database announced was that of the England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 project at http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/  I had already heard some information about this, as it had been featured at the Guild's Medieval and Early Modern Records Seminar last year.  I wasn't sure there were likely to be any Parrys in it, as it mainly relates to migration to England (and I don't think people from Wales generally counted as "Resident Aliens"!) But there was a possibility that some of the "ap Harry"s involved in the Hundred Years War may have had "letters of protection" included in the project (as some of them are listed on the Medieval Soldier site at http://www.medievalsoldier.org/search_musterdb.php during the relevant period.)

Although there are a few "ap"s and other Welsh entries in the database, none of them are for "ap Harry".

However, I did find a “Clement Parry”, whose place of origin was France and his nationality French

[England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 (www.englandsimmigrants.com, version 1.0, 19 February 2015), http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/person/36898 ]

 So maybe not all instances of Parry as a surname had Welsh origins, after all!

DNA News

Sometime I will write a blog post about the Parry DNA project (at https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Parry ) But, this week, I am just going to include two pieces of news derived from my own personal DNA search, since they involve Parrys as well.

Last year I uploaded my Ancestry test results to Gedmatch.  I haven’t been following up all the matches from there yet but I happened to notice that one of them did relate to a Parry.  It was a fairly small level of shared DNA (8.5 cM, over 672 SNPs) so the common ancestor could be quite distant (or the match possibly not even genuine), but it was worth contacting them, because of the surname. We realised that we had been in touch some years ago, discussing their "brick wall” of a Robert Parry born in Chester, with the only possible baptism showing as a Robert, son of a Philip and Mary "Perry".  Much searching had not found a marriage for the Philip and Mary.  But now, returning some years later, we have found the marriage, and marriage licence, both under the surname Parry.  So that's one family potentially moved back another generation.  And we’re also proceeding with obtaining a YDNA test, so that is a bit of progress for the Parry project, as well.

And, secondly, as I was sending out invitations to the new matches on 23andMe recently, I noticed one of them listed Parry amongst their surnames.  The tree indicated that the link to the surname was a Gladys Emily Parry, born in Kentchurch, Herefordshire, in 1895.  Unfortunately, Gladys is not with her family in either 1901 or 1911.  In 1901 she is boarding with a Heiron family in Kentchurch and there are no other Parrys in Kentchurch itself.  However, there were two Parry families there in 1891:

David (60) and Jane (47), with children, Phebe 10 and Edwin Parry  (8) and

David (30) and Matilda (29) with daughter, Edith Emily Parry (1)

I haven't taken my "collateral branches" pedigree down this far yet, as I want more evidence to confirm the links before doing so, but the two Davids are shown on my "personal dna tree" at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/im.griffiths/parryfamilyhistory/personaldnatree.htm

 , where David ‘senior’ is shown first married to Esther JONES and then Jane COOKE, and David ‘junior’ is a son of the first marriage to Esther.  David ‘senior’ was brother to my 3xgreat grandfather, Thomas Parry.  

David and Matilda appear on my 1901 census listing, at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/im.griffiths/parryfamilyhistory/parrycensus/1901hef.htm#26069 , by which time they are living in Ewyas Harold.  Whilst they might appear to be the most likely family to have a daughter born in Kentchurch in 1895, the gap between Gladys and the next child, Charlotte, would be very short.  There are also several other Parry families in nearby parishes, who could be the relevant family for Gladys.    So it will definitely be necessary to obtain the marriage and birth information for her, in order to confirm this is the (possible) genealogical connection to my DNA match.  (And still only "possible" because, even if this is how we connect genealogically, that is not actually sufficient evidence to prove this connection is where the particular segment of DNA came from - we might have other connections through other ancestors, which we haven't yet found.)

But I am thrilled to have found a possible connection so easily.  Hopefully this is a sign of what is to come, as more people take DNA tests for genealogy and I build out the collateral branches of my tree.  I hope that other members of the Parry project find a similar increase in identifiable connections - even if the connection is through autosomal testing, it will lead to more 'related groupings' of people, so potentially more of us searching for, and contributing to, finding male Parrys to YDNA test.

So quite a productive week, even if there are still several other “not yet achieved” goals.