I have been researching my family tree since about 2005 after an uncle left his own genealogy research papers to my sister who passed them on to me. He was attempting to find out details of his father’s early life and that of his step sibling’s father. As this was in the early 1990s and the internet was only in its infancy he had to resort to engaging professional researchers and up until his death in 1994 he was mainly unsuccessful in discovering very much of either of the two men.

Since that time I have discovered that my maternal grandfather, Robert James Harris, married my grandmother, Lily Maud Goulty, on the 17^th May 1916 in Greenwich, London. Both stated on their Marriage Certificate that they had been married previously. It was only after a number of years that I discovered that my grandfather had changed his name from Richard James Alexander Hannen Halket to Robert James Harris around 1882 whilst living in China and my grandmother’s first husband, and father of her first three children, was a fiction dreamt up by her and her lover.

During one of my many internet searches I discovered a cousin who was similarly interested in the Goulty line and also found out about the research undertaken by Dr. George A Goulty. Dr. Goulty commenced his research into the Goulty name in 1950 and he discontinued around the early 2000s.

Dr. George Goulty researched for over half a century and his wish was that his entire work was dedicated to and be available to all Goultys. I thought it would be unforgivable, after his enormous contribution, to leave his research in boxes gathering dust so this is the result with the hope, and with the help of all Goultys, that I can fill in some of the missing records since 2000.

Gaulty, Golty, Goate, Gotly, Goughty, Gouty, Gowly

 “I have no doubt the every Goulty at one time or another has had their surname misspelt.  In this age of typewriters and computers even when Goulty is correctly printed is it is often misspelt due to the carelessness of the persons copying it. How much greater therefore were variant spellings in earlier times when a Goulty was possibly illiterate and could not spell his surname and consistent spelling  was regarded as being of little importance. This list records the earliest date when the different spellings had been recorded in documents, usually wills. It will be noted that most of them are phonetically similar to Goulty. No claim is made that every varied spelling is actually a Goulty, but they are all possible, it will be noted that the earliest variant spelling was a Golty in 1544, and a few still use this spelling to this day. You may recognise from your personal experience some of the unusual Goulty spellings from the following list.”

Extract from The Goulty Omniana by Dr. George A Goulty - 2002

Extract from the Goulty Compendium by Dr. George A Goulty

APPENDIX C: THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH GOULTYS

The first question any Goulty who is interested in family history is likely to ask is. Where did the Goultys originally come from? There is no certain answer to that question, but it does provide a good reason to examine the very limited and unreliable evidence from three sources.

David Elisha Davy, 1796-1851, was the compiler of extensive manuscript collections relating to the history of Suffolk. In 1848 he published The  Armoury of Suffolk in which he wrote that Golty came from Calais. The Tanner Manuscripts held in the Bodleian Library Oxford include a pedigree of Goltie which has a note that 'Richard Goltie came into England from Calais about the time of the loss of Calais.' Mr Lower in about 1860 in his dictionary of surnames wrote that Goulty was probably derived from the French name Gaultier, meaning Walter, to which in sound it closely approximates. These three references are the only ones that make any statement of the origin of the Goultys in England. The French  origin suggests to many Goultys that they may be of Huguenot descent, thus a short commentary about the Huguenots in the context of general immigration to this country may be of interest to the reader.

Using the census data for England and Wales shows the number of Goultys in each county.

1841 Buckinghamshire (1) Cambridgeshire (11) Cumberland (4) Devon (1) Lancashire (1) London (6) Middlesex (2) Norfolk (40) Oxfordshire (1) Suffolk (1) Sussex (4) Yorkshire (3)

1851 Cambridgeshire (6) Lancashire (1) London (13) Norfolk (76) Suffolk (2) Sussex (6) Yorkshire (1)

1861 Cambridgeshire (7) Cheshire (3) London (3) Norfolk (33) Sussex (1)

1871 Cambridgeshire (2) Herefordshire (2) Northumberland (1) Norfolk (52) Oxfordshire (2) Suffolk (1) Sussex (7) Wiltshire (9) Yorkshire (12)

1881 Cheshire (6) Hampshire (2) Kent (1) Leicestershire (3) London (11) Norfolk (59) Nottinghamshire (1) Suffolk (8) Sussex (1)

1891 Cumberland (5) Devon (1) Durham (1) Essex (1) Hampshire (2) Lancashire (7) Leicestershire (3) London (18) Norfolk (35) Northamptonshire (5) Nottinghamshire (9) Suffolk (9) Surrey (1) Sussex (1) Yorkshire (6)

Wales – Glamorgan (2)

1901 Cambridgeshire (6) Cheshire (4) Essex (4) Hampshire (3) Lancashire (2) London (8) Norfolk (48) Nottinghamshire (5) Nottinghamshire (3) Suffolk (2) Surrey (1) Sussex (2) Yorkshire (3)

Wales – Glamorgan (4)

1911 Cambridgeshire (6) Essex (13) Gloucestershire (1) Hampshire (6) Lancashire (4) Lincolnshire (5) London (6) Norfolk (72) Northamptonshire (16) Nottinghamshire (10) Suffolk (6) Surrey (1) Staffordshire (1) Wiltshire (2) Yorkshire (6)

Wales – Glamorgan (3)

How Common Is The Last Name Goulty?

It is the 777,192^nd most widely held last name on a worldwide basis it is held by approximately 1 in 19,965,879 people. The surname Goulty is primarily found in Europe, where 95 percent of Goultys reside; 94 percent reside in Northern Europe and 94 percent reside in British Isles.

It is most prevalent in England, where it is carried by 336 people, or 1 in 165,828. In England it is most frequent in: South Yorkshire, where 38 percent reside, Hampshire, where 11 percent reside and Greater London, where 10 percent reside. Barring England this surname is found in 10 countries. It is also found in The United States, where 2 percent reside and Canada, where 2 percent reside.

Goulty Family Population Trend

The incidence of Goulty has changed over time. In England the number of people who held the Goulty last name rose 378 percent between 1881 and 2014 and in The United States it rose 225 percent between 1880 and 2014.

The web site https://forebears.io/surnames/goulty#similar indicates that the incidence of the name Goulty in 2014 were 336 in England.

Source: https://forebears.io/surnames/goulty

Most of the Goulty Birth, Marriage and Death entries from the General Register Offices for England & Wales between 1837 and 2005 have been recorded (some 1,900 + entries) and these were purchased by Dr. George A Goulty. As purchasing every Goulty certificates is now financially prohibitive I now rely on updating the data using the GRO Index for England and Wales.