Guild of One-Name Studies
One-name studies, Genealogy
Study: Worts **** available for adoption ****
Category: 1 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is in its early stages.
Contact: Ms Pauline Bezant
This study began with my own Worts ancestors who lived in Norwich, traced back to the mid 18C. As an attempt to build up a bigger picture I first looked for Worts families in other parts of Norfolk. I was surprised by the number of families I found from the 16C onwards.
When I was thinking I would like to start a one-name study I looked at the 1851 census to give me an idea of size and spread, there were just 120 people. I started to build families and followed people to Canada and the USA.
The name as recorded in BMD registers and the census does vary. In Norfolk Worts as a family name has been recorded as Watts and then Worts again and in one case at least stayed as Watts. Benjamin Worts and Ann Claxon had seven children baptised in Norwich some recorded with the surname Watts and some Worts. Their son Benjamin in adult life was known as Benjamin Worts although at his baptism in 1802 his name was written as Benjamin Watts. In a branch of my own family the name changed to Werts. Older records may have Woorts or Wortes.
If you look at the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names (2016) Worts is listed as a variant of Wort with plural or post-medieval excrescent s.
Wort is a more frequent surname and where Wort and Worts are used interchangeably I will record those occurrences. I will not at this stage in my study record all occurrences of the surname Wort.
The Surname Database includes different forms of the name: Wort, Wortt, Worts, and Wortman (English), and Wortz, Wurz, Wurtz, Wurzer, Wurzman (German). The surname "describes a grower or seller of vegetables or medicinal herbs and spices. The derivation is either from the Old English pre 7th century word 'wyrt', or the similar Old High German 'wurz', both meaning a plant. The plural forms are patronymic denoting the son of Wort(man). The occupation was highly respected in the Middle Ages, and it is perhaps not surprising that this is one of the earliest recorded surnames.” It is interesting the this writer regards the plural s as denoting son of but the Oxford Dictionary thinks the s is surplus and unnecessary.
The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain & Ireland (2016) says this. “English: nickname, occupational name from Middle English wort ‘plant, herb, vegetable’ (Old English wyrt), probably for a grower or seller of vegetables or medicinal plants. See also Wortman.”
The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain & Ireland (2016) gives some early examples:
John Wortes, a bitter enemy of William Paston, was mentioned in a letter dated 5 Nov. 1425. The dispute is documented in ‘The History of an East Anglian Soke’, by Christobel M Hoare (1918). You can read in detail about this dispute and the many Worts families who lived in the Norfolk village of Trunch on the Trunch history website. See Links section below
The last owners of Sutton Mill in Norfolk were father and son Thomas and Frank Worts. Thomas Worts owned the mill after it was rebuilt following a fire in 1861 until it was struck by lightening and damaged by fire in 1940. In 1881 Thomas was a farmer of 1000 acres employing 29 Labourers & 11 Boys. In a county directory of 1890 he is listed as "miller and farmer, and corn, seed, cake and manure mcht. and maltster, and brick and tile manufacturer, Sutton Mill"
The Oxford Dictionary gives the following as early examples of the Wort spelling
The 2002 ONS list counted 211 people with the Worts surname, its ranking was 20582. The count for Wort was 924, ranking 7054.
The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain & Ireland (2016) has GB frequency for Worts 155 and Wort 680
My analysis is limited to the UK because my study is just beginning.
In 1841 the majority of people with the Worts surname lived in East Anglia: 61 out of a total of 104
East Anglia: Norfolk 30, Suffolk 23, Essex 8 (total 61)
London including Middlesex, Lambeth & Woodford 42*
Hampshire 1 (Elizabeth Worts spinster whose will links her to Norfolk)
By 1911 things had changed considerably. There were 276 people of whom 67 lived in East Anglia, but the majority lived in London.
East Anglia: Cambridgeshire 12, Essex 22, Norfolk 21, Suffolk 12 (total 67)
London 151
Other counties: Bedfordshire 1, Durham 5, Hampshire 3, Huntingdonshire 3, Kent 1, Lancashire 3, Lincolnshire 2, Nottinghamshire 1, Shropshire 2, Surrey 10, Sussex 4, Yorkshire 10 (total 44)
Wales 10
* I have decided to record places that became part of Greater London as London. In 1841 Woodford was (and is) part of Essex but politically it is part of Greater London, as are Forest Gate and East Ham. Geographically they feel much closer to London and different from other Essex places where there were Worts families like Colchester and Manningtree.
Wort as a surname is located mostly in Hampshire and Wiltshire
The study consists of 2283 individual people many of whom are connected into family groupings.
The largest group consists of 346 people over 9 generations. These are descendants of Robert Worts and Ann Freeman who lived in Suffolk, their descendants lived mainly in Suffolk and Essex.
The next largest group consists of 229 over 9 generations. These are people who descended from John Worts and Hannah Wilson who lived in East Bergholt, Suffolk. I have not at this stage traced all their children and their descendants.
My own family is the third largest grouping with 159 people over 8 generations. They lived in Norwich and descend from James Worts and Mary Moor who married in 1752 in Norwich.
Altogether there are 330 islands or family groupings, of which only 22 contain more than 10 people. The remainder are small groups covering just two generations or unconnected individuals.
I have Excel files for all the censuses from 1841 to 1911 built from the Family Search website. These formed the basis of my Worts distribution analysis above. I am building up a collection of wills and probate records as well as BMD and parish register entries.
Val Dagley has given me permission to add a link to her website about the village of Trunch in Norfolk and her study "Worts of Trunch"
https://trunchhistory.weebly.com/worts.html