Sorry, I forgot to add the link to the search page itself: http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/uclnames/Surnames.aspx And here's the introduction: http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/uclnames/default.aspx Cheers, Ron Kyser

Hello to the Whitney Group This is an excellent finding aid that Ron Kyser has made available. The group may be interested in some research that I have done on this. Years ago when my wife and I visited England we took a large scale motorists' map of England and marked it up into squares and searched the entire map (including Scotland) for the Whitney name. All we found was the place named Whitney-On-Wye, which many decendants are aware of already, in Herefordshire, and Witney, in Oxfordshire, the home of "Witney" blankets. This village is just NW of the city of Oxford. You can find it by locating the Isle of Wight at the south end and go straight north about 1/5 of the way up the map. It seems that almost all the people in England know about Witney blankets. We visited both places. Whitney-on-Wye is just a turn in the road and some houses. It is of course the ancestral home of Whitney, but the second appears to be unrelated to the Whitney clan. I have the "History of Witney" book if anyone is interested. It seems the town was named after a location, or an old word or maybe even a person, but any links to the Whitney family seem to be missing. The source of the name is lost in time. Bill Whitney ************************************************************************ Quoting R R Kyser <[email protected]>: > Sorry, I forgot to add the link to the search page itself: > > http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/uclnames/Surnames.aspx > > And here's the introduction: > > http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/uclnames/default.aspx > > Cheers, > Ron Kyser > >

According to Basil Cottle, in his Dictionary of Surnames, the "wit-" in "Witney" is just what it looks like, i.e., "wit" or "wisdom". It also appears in Witton (at least in Lancashire; other Wittons have a different meaning) and the Yorkshire surname Witty. He says Witney means "Wise's island". It is a town in Oxfordshire (abbr. "Oxon"). ("Whit-" in place names and surnames almost always means "white". "-ey" means "island" in both names; interestingly, Cottle says the "-n-" is a sign of the dative in Whitney and the genitive in Witney.) Cottle adds, under "Witney": "...the Oxon town-- but cf. Whitney, though Witney is an Oxon surname and must have absorbed Whitney more often than vice versa." And under "Whitney": "...place in Herefords-- but Guppy [H.P., Homes of Family Names in Great Britain, London, 1890] counted the surname only in Northants, and it may often be a mis-spelling of Witney, from the place in nearby Oxon." This might explain the apparent robustness of the name Whitney in Northamptonshire. John's or Henry's or any other untraceable branch may actually stem from this region (i.e., if branches "stem"!) For this reason, I think we should invite any Witneys we can locate into our DNA study. That may be difficult. PlacesNamed.com is offline at the moment, or we could look up WITNEY's frequency. But Mongabay.com places WHITNEY at #783, while WITNEY does not appear in the first 16,000. Finally, anyone interested in the history of Witney can find 51 links here: http://www.directory.co.uk/History_of_Witney.htm Cheers, Ron Kyser http://www.directory.co.uk/History_of_Witney.htm On Jan 20, 2006, at 2:37 PM, [email protected] wrote: > Hello to the Whitney Group > > This is an excellent finding aid that Ron Kyser has made available. > The group > may be interested in some research that I have done on this. > > Years ago when my wife and I visited England we took a large scale > motorists' > map of England and marked it up into squares and searched the entire > map > (including Scotland) for the Whitney name. > > All we found was the place named Whitney-On-Wye, which many decendants > are aware > of already, in Herefordshire, and Witney, in Oxfordshire, the home of > "Witney" > blankets. This village is just NW of the city of Oxford. You can find > it by > locating the Isle of Wight at the south end and go straight north > about 1/5 of > the way up the map. It seems that almost all the people in England > know about > Witney blankets. > > We visited both places. Whitney-on-Wye is just a turn in the road and > some > houses. It is of course the ancestral home of Whitney, but the second > appears to > be unrelated to the Whitney clan. I have the "History of Witney" book > if anyone > is interested. It seems the town was named after a location, or an old > word or > maybe even a person, but any links to the Whitney family seem to be > missing. The > source of the name is lost in time. > > Bill Whitney > > *********************************************************************** > * > > Quoting R R Kyser <[email protected]>: > >> Sorry, I forgot to add the link to the search page itself: >> >> http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/uclnames/Surnames.aspx >> >> And here's the introduction: >> >> http://cetl2.geog.ucl.ac.uk/uclnames/default.aspx >> >> Cheers, >> Ron Kyser >> >> > > > >