We started to trace our Tatler family in 1968 and quickly discovered there were other families with the same name in the UK.  In 1976 Frank Higenbottam suggested we start a Tatler Newsletter and in 1977 F.C.Markwell suggested we join the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry as that covered the area of Staffordshire where many of the Tatler families seem to have lived. Over the next 20 years we searched all the records we could and made contact with all people we could with our name and gradually established several family groups mainly based in the Midlands or London.

In 1986 we published a 124 page book which summarized our finds and sent a copy to every Tatler household we knew about, free of charge and only asking for donations to cover the cost so that our research would be passed on to as many  Tatler families as we could find. This resulted in a huge mail bag and helped our research expand world wide.

In 2008 after more searching and visits all over the world we updated our information and family trees then published a 200 page book, "The History and Genealogy of the Tatler surname" which we sent to over 200 known Tatler households world wide. Again we had a good response and filled in many gaps, but as age takes its toll we are slowing down and would be very delighted if some one younger took over our research.

We have found lots of spellings of the surname but basically the main name seems to be TATLER with a few others such as Tattler,  Tatlar,  Tatlor, Tatelar, and many phonetic variations.

Today 90% of us use the name TATLER and about 10% TATTLER.

There was an Anglo Saxon chief named Tytila in the 6th century , a Titteler in East Anglia in 1273 and 1275

The earliest mention of the name TATLER as we spell it today is in 1491 and 1498  one in London and one in Lincolnshire.

The earliest families seem to be in the east and gradually drifted west into the Midlands, with a few  in London and the south.

The earliest family group we have is in Derbyshire  from 1692 to 1739, and then in Kingsley, North Staffs. a family group that goes from 1720 up to today and accounts for nearly half the present family trees.

We have found a Tatler at Trafalgar, some in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, in the Crimea, South Africa and other parts of the world.

In the Great War of 1914-18 seven  Tatler men were killed and in the 1939-45 War eight Tatler men lost their lives in various countries.

In the 1841 census of 15,914,000 we have found 155 people named Tatler.

In the 1881 census of 25,974,000 we found 255 people named Tatler.

From these and other figures we think there is one Tatler in every 101,000 of the population in England.

Using other census figures and family groups we think there are about 24 families and about 500 people today.

Gradually spreading from the east coast in Lincolnshire into Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire then into Cheshire and the largest settlement in the Potteries of Staffordshire ,with some going south to London and the south coast.  The first Tatler we have in the USA was in 1767  and to Australia in 1833, both sent as felons! There is also a family dating back to the early 1700`s in Romania and the Austro - Hungarian Empire.