The Goucher One-Name Study began back in 1993. By the time I had become aware of the Guild of One-Name Studies, the late Roger Goacher had registered the surname and a number of variants. Following the death of Roger in 2021, we registered the name of Goucher and a number of variants, which included Goacher.

Roger had left instruction that his data could be passed to the next registrant and we have spent the last two years merging Roger's and our data together. Roger had a different approach to us and we are currently transferring the data held within spreadsheets and word documents into a genealogical program (Family Historian), which will be used to create a website using TNG - There is still much work to be done.

Stuart's Goucher ancestry is from Derbyshire, moving north to Newcastle upon Tyne and then to Scotland. The Derbyshire branch, pop over the Nottinghamshire border in 1715, with a minor tweak to the surname spelling from Goucher to Goacher. Meanwhile, Julie's Goachers were in Surrey whose roots migrated from across the Sussex border.

Accents and dialects impact the way a word is spelt. A heavy accent or unfamiliar words leads to a variation in spellings, furthermore, in the past when many people could not read or write they had no idea if their name had been written correctly. The spellings marked with an * are ones that are registered with the Guild, but there are several others which are collected, but not registered.

There are variants that a specific to particular locations, the small list of surnames below are found in Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada and Australia,

• GOACHER *
• GOATCHER*
• GOCHER*
• GOUCHER*
• GOUTCHER*
• GAUCHER*

With the surname of GOTCHER more prevalent in the United States. 

There are earlier spellings:

• GAULTHIER and GOTYERE found in Sussex
• GOLDCHER & GOLDEHER found in Staffordshire
• GOULCHER & GOULDSHER found in Wolverhampton
• GOOCHER in Leicestershire
• GAUCHER, GEAUCHER and GAUSHER found in Derbyshire.

Other instances are:

• GAUTHIER in France
• GUTCHER* on the Isle of Orkney

There is a Goucher DNA project at FTDNA and we welcome new participants.

Blog posts relating to our Goucher study can be found HERE with the front page HERE.

Site under review and updating 22 May 2024 - JG