Bodenham Surnames

Page 1: A to L

Page 2: M to Z

 

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NOTES:– The current idea is to look at these charts, starting with the name of your mother (i.e. within living memory) as a ‘starting’ point, and thus research back to about 1900.

To get further back one would need to look in conjunction with BMD certificate indexes (4000+ lines of landscape format writing) where no maiden surnames were released to get back to about 1837 (i.e. to Parish Records, etc.).

Tackling anything earlier involves much more complicated intricacies which might take years (unless one happens to fall within lineages already completed).

Locations are also very useful to help distinguish one Bodenham from another. So, commonality of a given location (e.g.Minsterworth) also indicates family members where the more common given names are being used.

The usual ‘John’s and ‘Mary’s definitely need geography to distinguish them, combined with the fact that the common man did not move very far if he had no work to go to, or had to be supported by some new Parish if he moved on without such employment. That kept one fairly static, unless, in say the Industrial Revolution there was unlimited employment available in the cotton industry, for example. Or if they had a useful trade which would derive an income.

Andy Bodenham

p.p. John Bodenham, Plymouth, Devon