Gotts

Gotts One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Gotts

Variants: Gottes

Category: 3 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is well under way on a global basis.

Guild hosted website: gotts.one-name.net

DNA website: www.familytreedna.com/groups/gotts

Contact: Mr Ian Gotts

About the study

I am Ian Gotts of St Albans, UK and I have set up a website for people interested in the name GOTTS. This can be accessed at: https://gotts.one-name.net/

I have registered the name in the UK's Guild of One Name Studies, and I have collected many records, written up many stories and histories about Gottses on the website, hosted here at the Guild of One-name Studies.

This includes 400 web pages on the name, a database of over 2500 Gottses in trees, and a regular Blog.

Records include:

UK civil Births Deaths and Marriages, as well as the civil probate wills.
US census records
Military records
Parish register entries, especially around Norfolk in England, where the name originates. I currently have 4500 names identified in family trees covering UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

I am always pleased to hear from anyone about the name and will add any references you have to my databases for use by others.

Variant names

Variants include Gottes. The name GOTT is covered by a different one-name study, though is a common misspelling.

Name origin

Although some think it is of German origin, the name GOTTS/GOTTES originated in Norfolk, England. There are several views of its origins including:

a glutton - too easy to spot
someone living by water, a gutter or a watercourse(Danish/Scandinavian)

Given the location, the whole area was swamp, marsh, flooded, so anyone living there could easily be given this name, especially as this area was under Danish rule. It may be a 'genitival name ie 'of Gotte' though no instances of this are known.

It then spread up the North East coast in 1800s, to London and to Canada, USA and Australia in the late 1800s & 1900s.

Historical occurrences of the name

Earliest record is now Godui GOTT in 1095 in Bury St Edmunds (Reaney)

There are records of a Richard Gottes in 1361, a bishop in one of the Norfolk churches, and Henry Gottes of Clippesby recorded in Feudal Aids in 1362. Many more are described on the website showing how the name most likely came about.

Notable Gottses are shown on my website : https://gotts.one-name.net/gotts_hall_of_fame.page29.html

Name frequency

The name Gotts appears to be 1 in 50,000 of the UK population.

Distribution of the name

Mainly England, and now USA and Australia

DNA

I have registered a DNA Project with Family TreeDNA which can be accessed at familytreeDNA Gotts project

It is hoped this will clarify which families are connected, and whether the name names from a single source.

If you are a direct male descendant of a Gotts then please contact me for a free DNA kit.

Links

For further details see my website: https://gotts.one-name.net/index.html

Contact Details

Mr Ian Gotts

General Search Results

Occurrences of the surname Gotts in the Guild Indexes

(Click on the number to view the search results in each index. Indexes marked by * are only accessible by logged in Guild members.)

Global Marriages (public) 1547
Global Marriages (members)* 2092
Inscriptions Index 11
Modern Newspaper Index 1
Probate Index* 86
Datastores 4386
References to the name Gotts in the Guild Journal 11

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