Gumbleton Family History
The name "Gumbleton" (also written as Gomeldon, Gumbelton and Gambleton)
originates from the village of Gomeldon, near Salisbury, in Wiltshire,
England. I have been researching the history of the Gumbletons (from whom
I am, myself, descended) for some years and have accumulated information
about several thousand Gumbletons of earlier times.
Although the largest concentration of of the family remains in the Wiltshire and Dorset areas of England,
Gumbletons established themselves in Ireland
(see section on Gumbletons of Ireland), Australian and the USA.
One-name study
The principal worldwide organisation concerned with one-name genealogy is
the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS). I have been a member for some twenty years
and the name 'Gumbleton' (and its variants) is registered with them as a one-name study. Originally, one of the main responsibilities
of a GOONS member was to extract all the people of their chosen name from the main UK records of births, deaths and marriages.
With the advent of online sources, such as FreeBMD,
that has become less of a necessity, but it remains an important body of information.
Online information
As far as possible, I try to make the results of my work available online.
For example, the births, marriages and deaths information, mentioned above, is all available from this site.
I have also extracted information about the Gumbletons from censuses and many other sources, including correspondents
from all over the world. Again, my aim is to make it as freely available as possible. Most of this can be found
in the Compendium of Gumbletons section of the website.
Family reconstruction
In 2001, I began to add pages relating to individual people and linking them to the records which recorded events in their
lives. This has now grown to include about 1100 people, mostly from the period 1837 to 1911. These web pages are built
using software that I wrote myself and it draws its data from a master database of people and sources that I maintain off-line.
The online content does not include the most recent generations, for reasons of privacy.
Current problems
- Tracing the ancestry of my own ggg-grandfather, Robert Gumbleton of Sherborne, Dorset.
- Tracing the origins of the Irish branch of the family
Famous Gumbletons
The best claim to fame must be William Gomeldon who was a seventeenth century jeweller and was responsible for providing jewels for Charles II. Some of these are significant items amongst today's Crown Jewels on show at the Tower of London.
Currently, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit is a well-known figure in the US and internationally.
Gumbletons today
The Gumbleton name is quite rare today: there are fewer than a hundred Gumbletons
in the UK telephone directories. Many of these are descended from a single nineteenth century family and many
still live in Wiltshire and Dorset.
The above picture was taken by Mark Gumbleton at a Gumbleton reunion organised by Tony Jones in August 2002.
Click on the image to see full size version.
Other people interested in the Gumbleton name
I am grateful for any reference to the Gumbleton name, worldwide, and will happily answer any enquiries from those seeking information about Gumbletons in their own family trees.
Useful links
Commercial, privacy and copyright
This website is independently owned and maintained. It does not rely on commercial sponsorship or advertising and does not promote or endorse any particular products. Wherever possible, the content uses open standards to ensure that it is browser-neutral and platform-neutral. If any platform or browser dependencies are found, please contact the site owner.
I am committed to respecting your privacy and recognize your need for appropriate protection and management of personally identifiable information you share with me. My intention is to avoid publishing, online, any information about living persons and recent events, other than general information that is readily available through other sources. In general, information and contact details that are sent to me will be made available, on an individual basis, to other genuine researchers who are interested in the Gumbleton family. However, if you send me information and stipulate specific privacy requirements, I shall observe them. No personal information is made available to commercial organisations.
Copyright statement: The individual items of information contained in this website are not copyrightable. However the collection, compilation and presentation of this information is the copyright of Steve West. The contents of the website may be reproduced and distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic, for non-commercial purposes, provided that this license notice is displayed in the reproduction. Commercial redistribution of the information is prohibited.
Steve West
steve.m.west@btinternet.com