On Tuesday, 27 October 2015 21:04:07 UTC, Ian Goddard wrote: > On 26/10/15 18:44, melanie chesnel wrote: > > On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 7:33:51 PM UTC+1, melanie chesnel wrote: > >> On Monday, October 26, 2015 at 11:42:30 AM UTC+1, Ian Goddard wrote: > >>> On 25/10/15 17:44, melanie chesnel wrote: > >>> > >>>> Just think stone masons building castles and cathederals v. ag labs > >>> > >>> Ag labs, hired from year to year with no home of their own could have > >>> been quite mobile. > >>> > >> I quite agree I was thinking more when ag labs were serfs tied to the manor - I suppose I shouldn't have used the 19th century abbreviation when thinking of the middle ages. > > I think there may have been another factor at work in the medieval & > Tudor period, the manorial administration moving people about. Ian, I would absolutely agree with you on that. Not merely for family estates, but probably also for monastic ones. It would be interesting to see whether DNA evidence could show that (unfortunately, DNA studies so far have just mirrored what we already know). And at a more local level of movement. My impression from surname clusters is that they followed manorial boundaries rather than parochial ones. My impression from 17th & 18th century evidence is that richer families were able to buy or marry into customary tenements for younger children within the manor, so knocking out chances for less fortunate families; while landlords tended to look for tenants who were reliable (and wouldn't over-plough), namely individuals or families that they already knew. Both dynamics narrow the DNA pool. Chris