Welcome to the DUSTAN One Name Study page. My name is Michael Lock and I have taken on the responsibility to research and map out the Dustan line (and variants later). The name, as it relates to me is that it was the surname of my mother's grandmother on her fathers side,

The Dustan One-Name study started back in 2005, which grew out of a fascination and desire to resolve a mystery and to trace my own ancestry. The story is that I was seeking to discover, without much success at the time who she was and where she came from, It was known she was born in Scotland but nobody knew how she ended up in Bath, England in 1902, the date on the birth certificate of her first born. Her journey from Scotland to England was, and still is, somewhat of a mystery. I began to collect an ever increasing and expensive collection of Dustan records in my research but was struggling to make sense of it. At this point in 2008 I joined the Guild to see if they could help me in my research. A few years past and time was a resource I had precious little of so my research waned for a while. I finally bit the bullet and picked back up my self imposed challenge and registered the DUSTAN surname officially with the Guild of One-Name Studies in Jan 2015.

Progress to Date

For the most part the effort has been to gather the data from across the globe and to create trees of the different lines. To date I have managed to gather the majority of data from the Scotland's People site (a very expensive exercise as they charge for every record!) but I believe I now have all of the available Dustan BMD and Census data for Scotland. I have also amassed a great deal of the England & Wales, USA and Canada data as well. But despite all of this research the mystery remains a mystery, at least up until 2018.

I have a multitude of circumstantial evidence that makes a link between Scotland and Bath, England compelling, but nothing conclusive, so the search continues.....

Finally a Eureka! moment. My hypothesis around the previously stated circumstantial evidence has proven to be correct based on newly discovered DNA matches in late 2018, early 2019. I am now able to more clearly define my DUSTAN line and has renewed the impetuous to continue my ONS for the surname.

2020-2025 - This period of time has been very busy and also very challenging in gathering as many references to the DUSTAN surname as can be found in available documentation. You will understand this is a very daunting thing to undertake but it is very rewarding. I have now managed to put together related trees, some 28 to date, but I suspect this will reduce as I find relationships between them. Once I have them in a presentable form I will post some of the more formidable ones here.

Primary focus is on DUSTAN, variants will be added at a later date once identified as being a true variant and not just a transcription error.

known transcription errors: DUNSTAN, DUSTON.

The name DUSTAN is most likely to be a variation on the origins of the name DUNSTAN which is understood to have sprung from the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture of Britain. It comes from when a family lived near a stony hill. DUNSTAN is derived from two Old English elements: 'DUN' which was a word for 'hill' and 'STAN' which meant 'stony'. The translation of the name is therefore 'Stony Hill'

  The frequency of the DUSTAN surname can be found on the Forebears website specifically here:

The detailed distribution of the DUSTAN surname can be found on the Forebears website specifically here:

The following tables show where DUSTANs lived and worked in order of density.

SCOTLAND

ENGLAND

UNITED STATES

CANADA