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Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

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    • 2,395 studies
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Mortimer One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Mortimer

Variants: Mortemore, Mortimor, Mortimore

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

Website: mortimer.one-name.net

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

Contact: Mr Roger Mortimer


About the study

The Mortimer One-Name study started in Oct 2010 because like many amateur family historians my own direct tree has reached an impasse which may only be resolved by charting all the known Mortimer's initially in the UK but to include distant cousins in the US and Australia.
In 2019 this has been developed so that in excess of 170 different Family Trees have been drawn, there are no links back to the infamous Roger de Mortimer 1287 - 1330, but there is a growing DNA Project see below.
Recently research of behalf of another ONS member came up with an old Suffolk/Norfolk of Mutimer although there is no proof as yet that this is a spelling variation, so a separate study has been complied.https://one-name.org/name_profile/mutimer/ 
 
David Mortimer a recent fellow researcher is compiling a useful website of Mortimer History to which I have added a link below https://mortimerhistory.com  please do look and let myself Roger and David know if you find it useful or can add anything to the Mortimer story.

Variant names

The registered variants of the name are Mortimore, Mortemore and Mortimor. Others as Martimer, Mortymer, Mortymore have not yet been included since no such references exisit in BMD indexes.

Name origin

According to Wikipedia the origin of the name is almost certainly Norman, but the details are disputed.

One version is that it derives from 'Mortemer', site of the Cistercian Abbaye de Mortemer at Lisors near Lyons-la-Fort and close to Rouen in Normandy. The land was granted to the Cistercians by Henry II in the 1180s. Finding the land to be a marshy-land of the Lyons Forest around the running Fouillebroc Stream, the monks dug out a large drainage lake and built the Abbaye de Mortemer. The ruins and lake can still be visited, and the later 16th century Abbey hosts tours.

There are two possible explanations: first, a small pond must have already existed before the land was given to the monks and have already called Mortemer like the two other Mortemer, because the word mer 'pond' was not used anymore beyond the Xth century. This word is only attested in North-Western France and of frankish or saxon origin mari / meri 'mere', 'lake' (in Cambremer, Blingemer, etc..); mort(e) 'dead' is also quite common to mean 'stagnant' (in Port-Mort 'the port with stagnant water', Morteau 'dead water', etc.). Second, the monks could have given the name Mortemer to their drainage lake to remember the other Mortemer for any kind of reason we don't know, making a pun at the same time with Mer Morte 'Dead Sea'.

Certainly the historical English connections go back as far as William the Conqueror, that particular line possibly dying out with Edmund Mortimer 5th Earl of March d1425.

Historical occurrences of the name

Probably the best known and most notorious Mortimer is that of Roger Mortimer 1st Earl of March who rather fancied King Edward II's Queen Isabella and after helping to dispose of the Edward became for a time de facto ruler of England. He however aroused anger from other barons and in October 1330 was arrested and executed at Tyburn. For more information see Mortimer History Society link below

Other notables are the family of John Mortimer of 'Rumpole' fame and his wife Penelope Mortimer nee' Fletcher, which also include his father Herbert C Mortimer, a divorce barrister and two of his children Emily and Rosie. Further back we have found the painter John Hamilton Mortimer (1740 - 1799) and John Mortimer (1658 - 1736) author and landowner whose son Dr Cromwell Mortimer (1702 - 1752) was also an eminent doctor

To coincide with the commemoration of WW1 the study has so far generated 36 Family Trees relating to those Mortimer's who served and who died. This is not complete by any means but the study seeks correspondents who are interested or may have additional information.

Name frequency

From the 1901 census records there were some 6542 Mortimers in England with a further 633 in Scotland and 295 in Wales.

According to an ONS database there are some 10557 Mortimers at September 2002 with a 1451 further Mortimores. Others with silghtly different spelling or hyphernated names amount a further 98. These only takes account of those in England and Wales which makes Mortimer the 721st most common name where as Mortimore is the 4885th in England and Wales.

 

Distribution of the name

Based on the 1881 Census the greatest numbers of Mortimer families are in Devon, West Yorkshire and London, currently figures for the UK amount to some 13980 persons with the USA some 5358 and Australia 1735 persons.

Data

A significant amount of data has been collected but has yet to be downloaded to the ONS Guild archive as this name study is very large and really still in its infancy despite a period of 9 years in research. BMD data has been collected up to 2010 and complete births for all years 1837 to 1983. The study is currently working on completing Births for the remaining years for upload to ONS Archive.

A total of 173 Family Trees have been mapped containing some 11743 persons and 3690 marriages. The total number of registrations since 1837 collected is Births 32928, Marriages 23011, and Deaths 24620

DNA

The current Mortimer DNA project is run through www.familytreedna.com in which we have had some success in linking a Mortimer in the USA to two others in the UK, one of which retains the mainly West Country spelling of Mortimore.
Although this project currently has a relatively a small number of contributors it and needs to grow it would benefit all Mortimer's to undertake the male YDNA tests to establish where their origins. 

Links

http://www.mortimerhistorysociety.org.uk/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/

https://www.familytreedna.com

https://mortimerhistory.com

Contact Details

Mr Roger Mortimer

General Search Results

Occurrences of the surname Mortimer 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.)
  • Marriages of the World (public)  108
  • Inscriptions Index  1
  • Modern Newspaper Index  6
  • Marriage Index 1837-1945* 657
  • Probate Index* 90
  • Scottish Index* 9
  • World Wide Marriages Index* 66
  • BMD Index* 236
  • Members' Data Stores in which the name Mortimer appears* 46

Other Guild Websites

You may find our other Guild websites of interest:

  • Members’ Websites Project
  • Surname Cloud
  • Guild Members’ records on FamilySearch
  • Guild Marriage Locator

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Email: guild@one-name.org
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