This page acts as a portal to research my wife and I have done over the last 25 years (in between the constraints of careers and bringing up our three sons). We gratefully acknowledge the help we have had in recent years from correspondents around the world. There follows a brief resume of the families whom we have researched, with their geographical locations. We hope you will find them of interest and of use.
DAGNALL family of Lancashire. This is an unusual name, not even being common in South West Lancashire. Within Lancashire, my wife's family appear to have originated amongst the mercantile classes in early 18th century Liverpool. By the 19th century, they were living in Eccleston and Prescot (just outside of Liverpool), and working as blacksmiths and watchmakers. There is increasing evidence that before 1700, the family came from Hertfordshire, speculatively as a result of religious persecution in the 17th century. The DAGNALLs appear to have been Roman Catholics, and so a move to Lancashire would have been logical as this was an area of high recusancy. The surname appears to be derived from a village on the border of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire called DAGNALL, which itself is derived from the Old English Dagganheale, meaning "nook of land belonging to a man called Dagga".
RHYND family of Fife in Scotland. The earliest generations of this family are tenant farmers in Leuchars in Fife, at around 1700. Nick's own line are in Dundee in the 19th century, and have been casual workers and tinkers! The is new evidence linking the family with the BRUCE's of Earlshall, one of the main cadet branches of the Bruce of Annandale family which produced King Robert the Bruce.
STOLL family of Baden - Baden in what is now Germany, but are connected to my own family via an ANTHONY STOLL, watch and clockmaker, who emigrated to Birmingham, England about 1850, the time of the Great Depression in Germany. Louisa BARTH from Kidderminster married Anthony STOLL.
HOUGHTON family of Ipsley, Worcestershire. The surname is uncommon in Worcestershire, being far more common in Lancashire and East Anglia. However, the northern holders of the name commonly use a Hor-ton pronunciation, whereas there is a strong insistence on a How-ton pronunciation in Worcestershire.
MORRIS family of Herefordshire and latterly Birmingham. The family may have been engaged in housebuilding in 18th century Leominster. My own ancestor, James Morris joined the great migration into the industrial conurbation of Birmingham, becoming a Baker. Many of his descendants seem to have been shop-keepers also.
