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Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

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    • 2,377 members
    • 2,236 studies
    • 7,920 surnames

Teskey One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Teskey

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

Website: www.teskey.org

Contact: Mr Ken McDonald


About the study

My mission is:

  • To record the history of all people, past and present, with the name Teskey or who are descended from a Teskey family.
  • To share this history with all living members of those families, and to make the history available for future generations.
  • To encourage contact between members of the Teskey families.

Variant names

Whilst not registered as a one name study, I continue to gather information worldwide about people with the surname TUSKEY as many have the same Irish roots as most Teskeys.

Name origin

There is no confirmed origin of the family or the family name prior to 1709. It was recorded in that year in ship's passenger records as TESKE. The most convincing evidence suggests that the family came from Osthofen, near Worms, on the River Rhine, where their name was spelt TESCH.

Historical occurrences of the name

The majority of people in the World today with the surname Teskey are descended from just one family of four people that migrated as refugees from the German Pfalz (also known as the Southern Palatinate) to England and thence to Ireland in 1709. They were amongst many thousands of refugees who camped for a while at Blackheath on the outskirts of London. Several hundred families were transported to Ireland, many settling around Rathkeale in County Limerick. They became known as Irish Palatines. Their various German names became anglicised and our spelling soon became TESKEY. Their descendants spread to much of the English-speaking world in the 1800s and early 1900s. During the 1800s one branch of the family in Adare, Co Limerick, adopted the spelling TUSKEY. This variant has now spread around North America.

The name Teskey was also either adopted by or assigned to several families in Canada and USA who had migrated in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries from Germany and a number of eastern European countries. Their original name generally started with TESK but was either deemed too difficult by immigration officers or considered too Germanic at a time when it was not unusual to hide a German origin.

Name frequency

The name Teskey appears most frequently in Canada, followed by the USA. There are several hundred holders of the name in each of those countries and they are scattered all over North America. The largest concentration of the name is in Toronto, where descendants of several pioneer families have settled. There are less than 100 Teskeys in each of England and Ireland and much smaller numbers in a number of other countries.

Data

I maintain family trees in an Excel spreadsheet. I have approx 9,000 linked names and a further 1,300 in smaller groupings. This has been constructed from data gleaned through my own systematic research and from information received from other family members. I hold virtually all available data for Teskeys in England and Ireland. I have a reasonable quantity of data from North American sources, although much of it has not yet been transcribed or incorporated into the family tree.

The family's website www.teskey.org incorporates an extract from my family tree of the main grouping of Teskeys, but does not display living people.

Links

www.teskey.org

Contact Details

Mr Ken McDonald

General Search Results

Occurrences of the surname Teskey 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 (members)* 1
  • Study materials for the study Teskey* 19
  • References to the name Teskey in the Guild Journal  1

Other Guild Websites

You may find our other Guild websites of interest:

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

Contact Us

Email: Guild General Contact
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c/o Secretary
Edendale, 113 Stomp Road
Burnham, Berkshire, SL1 7NN, U.K
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