Hundleby

Hundleby One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Hundleby

Variants: Hundelby

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

DNA website: www.familytreedna.com/public/Hundleby

Contact: Mrs Susan Hundleby

About the study

The Hundleby one-name study is registered on behalf of the Hundleby Society: a group of people interested in learning more about the Hundleby name. The group meets up from time to time usually in the Lincolnshire area.

Evelyn Dick and Grant Hundleby have completed books about the Hundleby family. If you would like to request further information about these books please email your request to the contact details below.

All the recent Hundlebys have been traced back (via paper records) as far as Robert Hundleby, who died on 7th January 1766 leaving a will stating that he was a Graiser in Firsby, a small village just outside Spilsby in Lincolnshire. After a number of bequests, he left the remainder of his estate to his wife Elizabeth (nee Gresswell). He had two sons (John and Robert) and three daughters living at the time of his death.

Evelyn writes about the descendants of Robert's son, John Hundleby, who was born in Firsby and was buried at Monksthorpe in 1793, aged 37. Grant writes about the descendants of Robert Hundleby (jnr) and includes information about Grant's grandfather's emigration to New Zealand and the other Antipodean Hundlebys.

Finding baptismal and death records for the Hundleby family in the 18th century is time consuming - any help that you can offer will be gratefully received. Whilst the Hundleby family was Methodist in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is possible that the Hundleby family was nonconformist in the 18th Century and this may explain the lack of C of E baptismal records. Monksthorpe is the main Baptist chapel for the surrounding area, built in 1701. The Monksthorpe records were damaged by fire and limited records remain. There is another possible Hundleby grave at the Monksthorpe Baptist Chapel: John Hundleby buried 1742 aged 60, but the link to the current Hundleby families has yet to be established.

The Hundleby Society is also in touch with a number of descendants of Elizabeth Hundleby who married a William Sizer on 17 May 1721. There has been speculation that this was the Elizabeth Hundleby who was baptised in Willoughby on 1 March 1682, but the baptism dates of her children throw doubt on this assumption. No definitive connection has yet been made between this Hundleby line and the Firsby graiser, Robert Hundleby and the search continues.

Evelyn Dick and Susan Hundleby are researching Hundleby wills from the 15th, 16th and 17th Century with the hope of establishing a link between these 'ancient' Hundlebys and the current day Hundlebys. Family charts have been completed based on information in the Wills and the Parish Registers. A book has been produced showing the preliminary research findings, but the work is ongoing and revisions are necessary.

Variant names

The only variant of the name registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies is Hundelby, although the name has clearly been transcribed in many different ways over the years.

All current day Hundlebys have been traced back to one individual, Robert Hundleby, who died in 1766. Prior to this there were three or four Hundleby lines. Did the other lines die out or did they vary their name?

Name origin

In more recent times the Hundleby family originated from Lincolnshire, where there is also a village with the same name. Family folklore - cited by Evelyn and obtained from the late David Hundleby - tells us that two brothers came to England from Europe and settled in Lincolnshire. At that point in time our ancestors did not have surnames. However, after William’s conquest in 1066, native people gradually started to use surnames, albeit in French. We therefore find records for Gilbert de Hundleby, Simon de Hundleby and others starting in the 1100s. Gilbert and Simon were witnesses on documents such as deeds for the nobility which puts them in the upper echelon of local society – it may be, but is not proven, that they were principal residents/landowners around the Hundleby village at that time.

Whilst interesting to research, the origin of the Hundleby name does not help us establish where our ancestors actually came from as we believe our ancestors took their name from an already established village/farm/hamlet of that name. The Hundleby village was in Domesday Book but this does not mean our ancestors were there at that time. David Hundleby’s oral history indicates that they came with or soon after William’s invasion.

Until recently we have always understood that the place name of Hundleby was derived from the settlement of Hundulf. However the references to Hundulf in Domesday Book only provide evidence that he had connections with Yorkshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire not Lincolnshire, so this derivation now seems unlikely.

We have received a fascinating essay titled "Hundulf and All That" from David Evans, a classical philologist, who focuses on the phonology of the Hundleby name. According to David: Hundleby is a secondary form of Humbleby which is a tongue twister because of its three labial consonants. Hence the syllabic dissimilation of "b" to "d" and the contiguous assimilation of "m" to "n". Humbleby derives from Old French humble, which in turn originates from Latin humilis, meaning 'low' in both the physical and figurative sense; hence here 'low-lying' (spot). Compare the Yorkshire village of Humbleton where no phonological change is necessary.

Distribution of the name

A full study of the Hundleby name in the English census records from 1841 to 1939 has taken place. Around 85% of the earlier census records appear in Lincolnshire, 9% in Yorkshire with a scattering in Northamptonshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and other areas.

Around 85% of all the Lincolnshire parish records (for parishes where we think Hundlebys might have been located) have been read and the Hundleby entries recorded.

The Hundleby family has migrated into many parts of the world and the name is known in Canada, the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Solomon Islands and South Africa. All lines have been traced back to the Robert Hundleby, who died in 1766.

DNA

David Hundleby had his y-DNA tested back in 2009. He is classified as R1b-U106. Based on information obtained from the R1b-U106 group on Family Tree DNA, this is a patrilineal family group that appears to descend from an ancestral R1b group located among or near the Yamanaya culture, north of the Black Sea area. The group rose to significance in Germany and the surrounding areas probably a bit before 3000BC. Although U106 is found all over Europe, and in countries that Europeans have migrated to, it is most significant in Germany and surrounding countries, also Scandinavia, and Britain.

In the early years of DNA testing, we were delighted to discover that David's y-DNA matched Luke Hundleby's. This proved that paper research was correct, and the two main Hundleby lines (with people living today) did originate from a common ancestor. With the more recent introduction of autosomal DNA testing, we now have numerous connections confirming that David and Luke's family lines have a common ancestor.

Contact Details

Mrs Susan Hundleby

General Search Results

Occurrences of the surname Hundleby 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 21
References to the name Hundleby in the Guild Journal 1

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