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Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

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    • 2,562 members
    • 2,341 studies
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Welby One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Welby

Variants: Welbee, Welbey, Welbie, Welbye, Wellby, Wellbye

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

Contact: Mr Daniel Welby


About the study

This full world-wide One Name Study grew out of my general researches into my own Family Tree in 1976, when I hit a 'brick wall' in getting further back on my line. So I thought that the only way to get around this 'wall' was to find all references relating to the family name of WELBY, worldwide, hoping of course to link all such trees into one tree and of course the continuation of my own line within these trees, thus came about my one name research.

Variant names

The information in my study covers all occurences of the surname WELBY worldwide. The current variations listed includes: WELBEE, WELBEY, WELLBIE, WELBYE, WELLBY, WELLBYE as well as information on other variations not listed in the Guild index including Whelby, Welsby, Wilby, Willby (these last two are not being actively researched as only a rare occurance of being connected to a Welby tree due to misspelling has been found.

The study does also include the double barelled names of Welby-Everard, Welby-Gregory, Welby-Bone and Welby-Soloman

Name origin

According to A Dictionary of British Place Names, Welby is a 'farmstead or village by a spring or stream', combining the Old English 'wella' for a stream, with Old Scandinavian 'by' for a 'farmstead, village or settlement.

There is a WELBY village in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire and WELBY towns in New South Wales, Australia, and in California and Colorado in the USA

Historical occurrences of the name

Welby is recorded in the 1086 Domesday account as 'Wellebi', over two manors in the Threo Hundred of Kesteven. The first manor held 57 households, 7 villagers, 4 smallholders, 37 freemen, a priest, a church, and a meadow of 160 acres and woodland of 150 acres. In 1066 Queen Edith was Lord of the Manor, this transferred to William I in 1086, who also became Tenant-in-chief. The second Domesday entry shows a manor with 3 villagers, 5 freemen and 4 ploughlands, with a meadow 53 acres and woodland of 80 acres, with the 1066 Lord being Aethelstan son of Godram. In 1086 Lordship was transferred to Ranulf, with Guy of Craon becoming Tenant-in-chief.

Name frequency

Based on the United Kingdom census returns there were 327 with the surname WELBY resident in the UK in 1911, 337 in 1901, 320 in 1891, 302 in 1881, 259 in 1871, 217 in 1861, 226 in 1851 and 119 in 1841.

Distribution of the name

As of 2012, most of the Welby's are in United Kingdom, Ireland, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Others have been found in South Africa, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Data

I have details of all WELBY entries (and most of the variations) from the GRO indexes for England, Wales and Overseas which list 1318 births, 975 marriages and 850 deaths from 1837 - 2006. I also have birth, marriage and death indexes for Scotland from 1867 to 2006 and for Ireland from 1810 to 1990.

I have Australia and New Zealand birth, marriage and death index information.

I have copies of the census enumeration sheets for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911 for the UK as well as 1870 to 1940 US census and 1911 Canadian census.

I have copies or insome cases extracts of all wills from 1858 - 2000 for Welby

I currently have about 120 different family trees on Welby for UK, 39 trees for Ireland, 40 for USA as well as some for Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The International Genealogical Index as at July 1984.

I am very interested in the Welby's as people and try to find out as much about them.

I would be very pleased to help anyone with an interest in the Welby family seeking information on their ancestors, and would also be delighted to receive information, photographs, certificates etc. that might assist me in my quest to help grow the Welby family tree and tie them all up together.

Contact Details

Mr Daniel Welby

General Search Results

Occurrences of the surname Welby 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)  55
  • Global Marriages (members)* 70
  • Inscriptions Index  1
  • Marriage Index 1837-1945* 32
  • Probate Index* 9
  • BMD Index* 38
  • Members' Data Stores in which the name Welby appears 4

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

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