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Guild of One-Name Studies

One-name studies, Genealogy

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    • 2,686 members
    • 2,390 studies
    • 8,458 surnames

Whitter One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Whitter

Variants: Wither, Witter

Category:  1 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is in its early stages.

Website: whitterfamily.co.uk

DNA website: whitterfamily.co.uk/dna-project/mily.co.uk/dna-project/

Contact: Mr Kevin Fuchs


About the study

The Whitter One-Name study started in 2019. Like many one-name studies, it grew out of an attempt to trace my own ancestry. I'm living in Germany and I wanted to know more about my (paternal) english heritage.

This study actually started, before I even knew what a one-name study was. I was seeking for the origin of my 8th great grandfather Thomas Witter without any success and then began to collect everything I could find about the Whitter family in Lancashire.
From there onwards developed the desire to research the surname completly and to collect as much information as possible.

More Information can be found on my blog: here

If you have any questions about the surname or want to help, feel free to contact me! :-)

Variant names

The registered variant of the name is Witter.
But like with many other names back then, the spelling was not so important to the people as today. This is why there are many different types of spellings to be found, like Wytter, Wyttor, Whiter, Whitta or Whitear.

Name origin

Recorded in several forms including Whitta, Witter and Whitter, this is an English surname. Of early medieval origin, it is occupational for a decorator, but more specifically, one employed to apply whitewash to the walls of buildings, both inside and out. The keep of the Tower of London was known as the "White Tower," because it was whitewashed, as was Corfe Castle in Dorset. The name and word could also be used to describe a bleacher, someone who bleached cloth white. The derivation of the name is from the Olde English pre 7th century verb "hwitian", meaning to make white, in medieval English "whiten".

Read more: https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Whitter#ixzz6Ae8EqekX

Historical occurrences of the name

  • John Whitter (not known) – Longbowmen under Edmund, Earl of March in King Henry V. campaign in Normandy 1417. Probably participated in the sieges of Evreux, Ivry and Rouen.
  • William Witter (b. 1584, d. 1659) – The first known Witter in the New World. Born in either Cheshire or Sussex. Settled in Lynn, Massachusetts 1629.
  • Henry Whitter (b. 1892, d. 1941) - an early old-time recording artist in the United States. He first performed as a solo singer, guitarist and harmonica player, and later in partnership with the fiddler G. B. Grayson
  • James William Cheetham Witter (b. 1880, d. 1961) – Smoke room steward and Titanic survivor.

Name frequency

  1841 Census 1851 Census 1861 Census
England 390 466 624
Lancashire 139 211 216
Cheshire 88 100 64
Cornwall 70 36 60
Devon 29 36 35
Middlesex 22 35 45

More details: here

Distribution of the name

At the time of the 1841 Census the surname (and its variants) was most commonly found in Lancashire (139), Cheshire (88) and in Cornwall (70).
In the 16th Century, the majority of the Whitters were concentrated in Frodsham and Tarporley in Cheshire.

It can be assumed that the Whitters were long settled in Frodsham and Tarporley even before the Parish Registers were introduced in 1558. In George Ormerod’s “History of the County Palantine and City of Chester” Vol. 2 shows that one William Witter was a Rector of Tarporley as early as 1499 and states: “William Wyttur (Witter), who survived to 1543 was most probably displaced at the Reformation by death. He was a man of considerable substance, of a family long settled at Tarvin, and in the parish of Frodsham.”

In the 18th century, the name spread to large parts of southern Lancashire. Thomas Witter, who was probably born in Weston (near Runcorn) in 1721, is the common ancestor of much of the Whitters who lived in Lancashire in the 18th and 19th centuries. He was married in Parbold in 1743 and lived in nearby Wrightington at the time. From there his descendants spread westwards to Halsall, Formby and Bootle and eastwards to Wigan, Bolton and Manchester.
There were also some Whitters in Preston, Liverpool and Warrington that do not descend from him. However, much of these Whitters can still be traced back to Cheshire.

Data

1841 Census, England: Click here

1851 Census, England: Click here

1841, Lancashire: Click here

1841, Cheshire: Click here

Cheshire Wills before 1700: Click here

DNA

[ Work in progress ]

Links

https://whitterfamily.co.uk

Contact Details

Mr Kevin Fuchs

General Search Results

Occurrences of the surname Whitter 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)  1
  • Inscriptions Index  1
  • Marriage Index 1837-1945* 6
  • Probate Index* 3
  • BMD Index* 8
  • Members' Data Stores in which the name Whitter appears* 1

Other Guild Websites

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