The Millwater study commenced in May 2024 and is in its very early stages. I became interested in tracing my family tree 10 years ago. Previously, I had never thought about my family history or where I came from. The family had moved regularly as a child, and I had a limited sense of where home for me might be beyond the immediate family. 

Both sets of my grandparents were born and lived in Monmouthshire, South Wales, but our family seemed to lack any appreciable connection to either the area or the people. This lack of connection heightened after my maternal grandparents left South Wales and moved nearer to us in South East England, meaning our infrequent visits to Wales stopped completely.

However, at a music festival in North Wales in 2014, I met a Welsh community and diaspora with a clear sense of community and connection with each other and the land where they were born.  I left that festival envying them and with a strong personal sense of something important missing.  I was keen to start to trace my family history and to find out more about my family of origin and community.  I joined Ancestry online in 2015, intermittently adding to a family tree since then, but with limited knowledge of what I was doing or how easy it might be to get things wrong based only on hints I was getting from the website and with little time to spend on the project.  More recently, with more time available, I have revisited the tree and have also registered on a course with the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies to learn how to research my ancestry and build a tree based on evidence and analysis using validated sources.

My father died in 2018, having told me previously that he had had contact from someone with the Millwater name in the United States. He didn’t follow this up, and neither did I subsequently. In building the family tree since then, I have traced the Millwater name from Monmouthshire back into Gloucestershire (especially the Forest of Dean area) as far as the 17^th century and have informally looked up the Millwater name in the UK and US on Google and Ancestry, but without any detailed follow up.  I did note, however, that there are Millwaters registered as immigrants to the US, Canada and Australia in the 19^th century, and I am also aware of a Millwater that was transported as a convict to Australia.

I have been aware of the Guild previously but have not had enough time to undertake a formal study.  The study is now set up, and it is also linked to a formal DNA study at FamilyTreeDNA . I would love to hear from anyone interested in the Millwater name and/or this study, including the DNA study, and my contact details can be found below.

I intend to build the study initially in the UK, but eventually, it will expand into the US, Canada and Australia and in any country where the name can be found. This page will expand with more details as the study progresses, and eventually, there will also be a webpage that can be linked to from here. If you’re interested in finding out more, then please contact me at the email address below, and I look forward to hearing from you.

The registered variant names are Milwater, Milwaters and Millwaters.  Currently, these variants are taken from ancestors in Gloucestershire in my family tree.  The frequency of the variants increases as the tree goes back in time, and I will determine as I investigate more closely which of these were the original names and which might be transcription errors from the original documents.

Many of the surname investigational sites on the internet do not have any information on the name Millwater, though the name would appear to be consistent with a toponymic or locative origin. 

Ancestry.com states:

English (Gloucestershire): habitational name probably from a place called in Middle English either with mīl ‘mile’ + wæter ‘water stream’ or with mil(ne) ‘mill’ as the first element.  Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022,  

and this origin and source is also quoted in a search on FamilySearch

I will add more information on this as it becomes available.

There is a Millwater Surname Project at Family Tree DNA. The project home page can be found here or by following the link at the top of this page.

Our Y-DNA project welcomes new members. If you are a Millwater male, a female with a male relative who may be interested in testing, or know of a Millwater male who may be interested in testing, please contact me at the email address at the bottom of the page.

Over time, Y-DNA testing may provide evidence to support whether the different Millwater individuals and families are linked and whether the surname originates from one geographical place or multiple geographical places.

I am also happy to discuss the potential usefulness of autosomal DNA or mitochondrial DNA testing.

Y-DNA 37-marker Test Kits (for males only) and Family Finder (Autosomal) Test Kits (for males and females) are available for sale from the Guild at significant savings. If you are interested, please contact me first to discuss the options.