Guild of One-Name Studies
One-name studies, Genealogy
Study: Edgoose
Variants: Edgoss
Category: 3 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is well under way on a global basis.
Guild hosted website: edgoose.one-name.net
Contact: Mr Michael Edgoose
Quite by chance, I became a genealogist at the age of 27 over 53 years ago.
Very early on I wrote to the Lincolnshire Archives in Lincoln, England. That produced a reply from the senior archivist with a list of wills they held for people with my surname, together with instructions on how to teach myself to read old wills. How lucky I was. I remember Mrs. Joan Varley with gratitude.
The wills pointed me in the direction of southern Lincolnshire and a handfull of parishes around the parish of Pinchbeck. After transcribing all the Edgoose wills I decided to expand my search and I began ordering wills of their friends and neighbours. I started with the year 1750, working backwards. I now have the wills from 1600-1750, and an increasing proportion of those from 1500-1599. The names of all those mentioned in the wills of Pinchbeck residents have been extracted and indexed.
They are an amazing resource for finding relationships which aren't obvious from a study of the surviving parish registers and, in particular, are a useful adjunct to the registers of burials.
With hindsight I wish I had extracted surnames from the wills of several contiguous or nearby parishes from 1500-1600. They would have covered over half a century before the commencement of parish registers, a gap which I cannot fill from other records.
Beware. Although the results are fascinating the extractions are time consuming and one of the most boring genealogical tasks I can think of!
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The only EDGOOSE entry in Who's Who was the wife of the late Martin Stanley Andrew BALLINGER (1943-2007), the former chief executive of the Go-Ahead Group Plc.
The only 'EDGOOSE' to be found in the Dictionary of National Biography or the Dictionary of Labour Biography is James Headgoose HOLMES (1861-1934), illegitimate son of Maria HOLMES of Kirton in Lincolnshire. He was well known as the Organising Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen and stood for parliament unsuccessfully on several occasions. Dna tests in 2018 provided the proof that his great granddaughter Veronica was genetically linked to Derek, the great grandson of John Robert EDGOOSE (1839-1914) via the latter's sister Sarah Lawson EDGOOSE (circa 1832-1874). John Robert EDGOOSE was indeed the father of James Headgoose HOLMES.
In September 2002 there were 269,353 surnames registered with the British National Health Service, representing 54,412,638 people. Of these 117 were named EDGOOSE, making it =30,024 in the list of most common surnames.
The name occurs 59 times in the 1881 Census of England & Wales and just 3 times in the 1880 US Federal Census.
Today, the name is found mainly in the UK and Australia. I know of one family in the United States, and one in Portugal. The surname has died out in Jamaica and Fiji. The several EDGOOSE families in the Spalding and Boston areas of South Lincolnshire today can trace their lines back to one of the five children of Sarah Lawson EDGOOSE (1832-1874). My own great, great, great grandfather John EDGOOSE (1770-1820) moved from Gosberton in Lincolnshire to West Walton in Norfolk in 1796. His descendants are now widely dispersed throughout England.
The earliest known emigrant from England was Lieutenant (later Captain) John EDGOOSE who was granted land in Jamaica in 1660 and who died there in 1673.
John EDGOOSE (1766-1833), the 'notorious Edgoose of Holland Fen', was transported to Australia in 1833 but died on passage. At his trial he was said to be the father of sons who had been 'expatriated for felonies'. When or where they went has never been discovered.
A John Lewin EDGOOSE (1827-1890) from West Walton, Norfolk, emigrated to Wisconsin, USA, in 1846 but had no male heirs.
John James EDGOOSE (1830-1930) from Gosberton, Lincolnshire, sailed for Tasmania on 19 February 1859. His numerous descendants are thriving in Australia today.
A John EDGOOSE sired a child Juliana with Mere MATA in Fiji in 1872 but had no male heir. He was probably the John Thomas EDGOOSE (1838-????) who ran away to sea never to be heard of again. Juliana EDGOOSE's descendants live in Fiji, Australia and New Zealand today but of course bear the name of her husband - LILO or LELO.
A widowed great great granddaughter is all that remains of the families started by two sons and a grandson of Joel EDGOOSE (1804-1883) who emigrated to the USA in the 1800s. The surname's only presence in that great country appears to be a recent immigrant from the UK and his family, and the widow of the last descendant of James EDGOOSE (circa 1738-1792) of Kirkby-on-Bain, Lincolnshire.
With one exception, Edgoose was predominantly a Lincolnshire surname until the early 1800s. Its subsequent occurrence almost everywhere else can readily be traced back to the fens of south Lincolnshire.
Births, marriages and deaths, IGI, wills, National Probate Calendar, census returns, parish register entries, marriage bonds and allegations, monumental inscriptions, military records, etc., combined with interesting material from manorial court records, Quarter Sessions and Assizes, poor law documents, apprenticeship records, newspapers, and family letters, have been used in writing individual profiles of every one of the EDGOOSE and EDGOSS entries in the online database. See Link below.
In addition, all personal names have been extracted from the wills of residents of the Lincolnshire parishes of Kirkby-on-Bain (1750-1800) and Pinchbeck (1600-1750) in an attempt to widen our knowledge of the inhabitants of the parishes in which our ancestors once lived. An index has been created. Any wills that mention the surname EDGOOSE have been transcribed in full and are being systematically indexed. They can be found on the website under the heading WILLS & PROBATE.
An academic wrote recently: 'What makes the EDGOOSE database so fascinating is that it is an honest slice of life. Your unusual surname has made it somewhat easier for you to document some ordinary lives in extraordinary detail and honesty and that has made the EDGOOSE site invaluable.'
My thanks go to Marie BYATT, a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies in the USA, who oversaw the transfer of my database from FamilyTreeMaker to Legacy and then to the facility made available to the Guild of One-Name Studies by www.familysearch.org (The LDS Church). On completion of the transfer she wrote: 'You have a very impressive file, very thorough. You have obviously done a lot of careful work.'
A practical example of how three DNA tests enabled three lineages to be linked in the absence of documentary evidence can be found on my website at edgoose.one-name.net
The result of well over 50 years' research can be found at https://edgoose.one-name.net - The EDGOOSE and Related Families of England, Australia, Fiji, Jamaica and the USA. The website took almost three years to create, scanning all the photographs and documents in my posession. The scanning of letters from now deceased family members continues.
The data is also available on www.familysearch.org under Records/Genealogies/Guild of One-Name Studies.
The database lists all bearers of the surname worldwide known to me, with the exception of living individuals whose privacy is respected. It is a vast family reconstruction covering nearly five centuries down to the present day.