Scoon

Scoon One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Scoon

Variants: Scone, Scoone

Category: 2 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is well under way, but currently in some countries only.

Website: donjgrant.me.uk/schp.html

Contact: Mr Donald Grant

About the study

The aim of this one name study is to help researchers trying to track lines which include ancestors with the name Scoon. Apart from helping newcomers to access a concentrated set of basic Scoon data, I would like the study to identify, research and bring together the 'hidden gems' that will help the many people whom I know have run up against apparently unanswerable conundrums. Scoons are now spread all over the world - maybe you've got the BMD certificate, copy of a family bible or old obituary that will unlock someone else's research!

Variant names

The prime name for the study is SCOON, with SCOONE and SCONE as variants. These were the variants to which the name settled down in Victorian times. Prior to that, the non standard spelling which regularly occurred in registers mean that a large number of further spellings can be found with the names built from S / C or K / OO or O or U / N followed sometimes by E, S, or ES.

Name origin

The great majority of historical occurrences of the name SCOON come from Scotland and North West England. The most commonly nominated source for the use of the name is that it is locative having first been applied to the tradesmen involved in the building and development of the original Scone Abbey in Perthshire before its recasting into the Palace of the same name still in place today. I have not been able to trace any definitive proof of this, but there is considerable circumstantial evidence in the form of a concentration of early SCOON Parish records in Perthshire and adjacent counties. By the time of the start of surviving parish records, there is similar concentration in Midlothian centred on the capital Edinburgh, and farming areas in the Scottish Borders.

Historical occurrences of the name

Name frequency

Scoon is a rare name, with an average of 89 occurrences in the published Scottish censuses, equivalent to 0.0000187 of the 1911 population. Although small, this is still higher than the proportion in most other countries in which Scoons have settled; for example the United States almost certainly had the largest population of Scoons in 1930 (272) but this represented 0.000002215 of the population.

There are higher concentrations in some areas, particularly the islands of Grenada and Trinidad. There are few records available to research these but they have several lines which have representatives who have moved to the United States and the United Kingdom in the last hundred years and I would welcome input from researchers in the area.

Distribution of the name

By the eighteenth century, the bulk of the Scoons were concentrated in Roxburghshire (Hawick and St Boswells) and Dumfriesshire (Langholm and Canonbie), the last clearly with close links to the adjacent concentration in Cumberland (Brampton and Carlisle). At various stages after 1780, many Scoons, particularly families from the Hawick area, emigrated to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. More detailed information on this distribution is available at Scoon Distribution. There are small concentrations of SCONE families in Wales and the West Country whose origin is unclear but these appear to be variations of the much more common SKONE name and I have done little research on these.

Data

I have loaded data for the statutory data on births, marriages amd deaths in Scotland, England and Wales. The Scottish records have checked against the full certificates and some additional data loaded; the English and Welsh records come largely from various transcripts of the indexes checked in doubtful cases against the original index pages with a little additional data. These can be searched at Datastore Search.

For the Scottish records, I have made transcripts of the full data contained on most certificates so have much more data than is loaded on-line. I would be delighted to share this with Scoon decendants and am happy to answer queries.

My external Scoon web-site at Scoon One-Name Study holds a lot of additional material particularly in respect of parish records entries from the Scottish Borders and Scoon casualties in WW1 and WW2.

Contact Details

Mr Donald Grant

General Search Results

Occurrences of the surname Scoon 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 (public) 178
Global Marriages (members)* 179
Datastores 803

Is your surname here?