Hello, my name is Sam. I started researching my family history in 1991. It was whilst tracing my own family history that I came across the variants listed, relevant to some family members.  It got me wondering, as you do ... how many Godley's are there/were there?

So after a Family History Fair at Dunstall Racecourse, Wolverhampton, where I spoke to Guild representatives, I joined up and have been working on it since. It is only in the last five years that I have really had the time to crack on with the study.

My aims are as follows.

• Collect all instances of the surname and the variants worldwide so that I can produce family trees.
• Run projects on areas of interest such as the frequency of occupations, infant mortality, age at death, migration, frequency of first names and to see if Godley or Godly is the most predominant spelling.
• Publish my research and project findings via a website and blog (working ont his just now 2024).

I also hope that my research can help others who are researchingt he Godley surname.

I am initially focussing on England & Wales and will then progress to Scotland and Ireland. After this I plan to extend to USA and Canada, Australia and New Zealand and then the rest of the world.

I am looking for Godley's worldwide so feel free to get in touch.

Variants of the surname Godley include Godly, Godleigh and Godlee.  On occasion it has been misspelt as Godby and Godye.

Godley, Godly and Godlee are still used today.

Godley is a topographical surname, that is it is related to a location.  There is Godley Green, Godley, Manchester and Godley in Texas, USA with its own Independent School (Godley Independent School District).

Godley, a suburb of Hyde, has Godley Brook running through it and has it's own railway station as well as Godley Community Primary School.  There is a hill in Godley called Godley Hill on which you can find Godley Hall Inn and there is also Godley Reservoir to the north of the station.

Taken from Wikipedia (last modified 30 July 2014);

'Godley is a city in northwestern Johnson County, Texas, United States in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. It is on State Highway 171, Farm roads 2331 and 917, and the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad nine miles northwest of Cleburne. The population was 997 in 2006.'

Just a few occurrences of the surname.

• John Arthur Godley (1847-1932) - 1st Baron Kilbracken
• George Albert Godley (1857-1941) - Police Officer involved in the hunt for Jack the Ripper.
• William 'Bill' Godley (1879) - English footballer
• Sidney Frank Godley (1889-1957) - First Private to be awarded a Victorian Cross in WWI.
• George Auguste Godley - Fireman/Stoker survived the sinking of RMS Titanic.
• Kevin Michael Godley (1945) - singer/songwriter & drummer of bands 10cc and Godley & Creme.
• Adam Godley - actor

Taken from House of Names, www.houseofnames.com, Accessed 28/9/2024.