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! :-)

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.

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

More details: here

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.

1841 Census, England: Click here

1851 Census, England: Click here

1841, Lancashire: Click here

1841, Cheshire: Click here

Cheshire Wills before 1700: Click here

[ Work in progress ]

https://whitterfamily.co.uk