Guild of One-Name Studies
One-name studies, Genealogy
I am undertaking a One-Name Study of the six names Kemball, Kimball, Kemble, Kimble, Kimbell and Kembell worldwide and am very keen to hear from anyone with any of these names. Where possible I will try to provide information and in a number of instances I can probably assist people in their research on the basis of information I have already collected. The majority of the Kemballs alive in the 19th and 20th century have been assembled into extensive pedigrees. Similar information has been collected on the other variants, but to a lesser extent.
I started work on my family history over twenty five years ago, concentrating mainly on my father's side of the family. I soon found out that my great great grandfather was a James Kemball who, according to various census records, was born in Haverhill, Suffolk around 1796. However despite a great deal of research I was unable to locate the birth or christening records of my great great grandfather. I therefore started my research into the Kemball One-Name Study. Although over 25 years of research has involved the collection of over 20,000 records of the Kemball name (and its variants) some 25 years late I have still to locate James Kemball's birth or christening.
Other variants found include Kimbel, Kembel, Kembal and even Simbel, but these are all likely to be transcription errors.
The frequency of these names in the UK can be established from a 2002 database from the Office of National Statistics. This shows the current UK population and UK ranking to be as follows:
The Kembell name no longer appears in the UK, which suggests that it was either a variant of Kimbell or else the name has since died out.
I have collected over 20,000 records of the Kemball name and its variants. This includes all the births, marriages and deaths from 1837 to 2002 a large number of entries from the IGI and various Vital Record Index entries. The majority of these can be accessed from the Guild's Archives.
The following records are held on the Guild's Archive:
I hold some information on the Kimballs in America, but this is generally the area I need to do more research. However a significant amount of research on the Kimball families was carried out in the 18th Century by Leonard A Morrison and Stephen P Sharples. They published a two volume book (1,278 pages) entitled History of the Kimball Family in America from 1634 to 1897, and of it ancestors the Kemballs or Kemboldes of England.