Alan Crosby reveals how you can trace migrant ancestors in the medieval period
Recently I’ve been doing work on medieval towns in north-west England, looking at (among other topics) migration from the countryside to the towns, and also from small towns to larger towns. This is something of major concern to family historians, since it’s almost guaranteed that at least a few of our own forebears were migrants at some point, but medieval genealogy poses huge challenges.
In more recent times, censuses help us to trace people’s movements, and from the mid-16th century onwards parish registers may provide key information. There is also a wealth of statistics and analyses if we want to research the background – official reports, social history investigations, and academic assessments use census and other data to chart the numbers and directions of migration, and to seek possible explanations why people moved.
We as family historians can very often add lots of useful detail to the findings of these researchers, because we may know the specific reasons why our relations moved. Their stories might be impossible to ascertain except through the tales and memories passed down to us from previous generations.
But with medieval genealogy, we have to rely on sources that are much less comprehensive or detailed. We can scarcely ever trace particular individuals or even families. However, it is possible to look at the general patterns of migration in the 13th and 14th centuries using surnames.
Locative surnames are the key – those derived from the name of a place. Somebody might be known as William de Broughton or John de York, meaning that he or his immediate forebears had come from Broughton or York. If they lived in, say, Preston and came from the town, they would not be called ‘de Preston’, simply because so many other folk were also ‘de Preston’. However, if they moved from Preston to Manchester then they were much more distinctive, and would become known by their place of origin: “That’s John from Preston.”
Especially helpful medieval sources are local and national taxation lists, giving people’s surnames, from the 13th and 14th centuries (including the poll tax of 1377–1381). Historians have looked at these sources in different parts of England, and broadly reached the same conclusions. Migration to growing urban communities made a crucial contribution to
