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Welcome to my Web pages dedicated to research into the family history (genealogy) of FROGGATT. I hope you enjoy this site. Please let me know if you would like to contribute to the site or if I can help you with your own Froggatt research. |
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Overview of the Froggatt Web Pages
The surname of Froggatt originated in the area of Derbyshire and South Yorkshire (see 'Derivation of the name Froggatt'). Alternative spellings, such as Frogatt, Froget, Frogett, Frogot, Frogote and Frogat abound in centuries past, though there is now a reasonable consistency in the spelling as Froggatt. There is a village called Froggatt in Derbyshire. The first reference to the place name is in 1203 (see 'Early References to the place name of Froggatt'). Until the population mobility of the last 150 years or so, the surname was still very heavily concentrated in Derbyshire, and even in 1881, 52% of the 1,790 Froggatts living in the UK lived in Derbyshire and Yorkshire (see 'Geographic Distribution (UK)').
The earliest references I have found so far to Froggatts are in 1375/6 (John Frogot, Plea Rolls), 1386 (William de Frogote, mentioned in a document granting land at Mayfield, Staffs.), 1438 (John Frogot, witnessed a document granting land at Mayfield) and 1454/5 (John Frogot, Plea Rolls, Callowhill (Derbyshire?)). The first Froggatt reference that offers any family detail is of a John Froggatt and his family at Mayfield in 1532 (see '1532 Listing of Families' - sorry, page not yet written), and some of the later families can be linked into him with a degree of speculation. For further details of the early Froggatts, see 'The Early Froggatts'.
It seems probable that most living Froggatts today are descended from a small number of closely related Froggatt males from the late 16th century. A very large proportion of the Froggatt baptisms in the 17th century can be linked into a small number of lines of descent, which can be traced back to the last quarter of the 16th century. Together with other researchers, I have put a lot of effort in trying to link these families together, though the results are frustratingly inconclusive at present. I am in the process of publishing family charts of these Froggatt families on these pages (see 'Froggatt family histories'), though these are very incomplete at present.
My mother (Elizabeth Gillian, known as 'Betty') was a Froggatt. I am descended from the Shropshire branch of the family (see 'Shropshire Froggatts' and 'My Ancestral Line'), which migrated from Staffordshire around 1775. Their ancestors, like much of the Froggatt family, had been based around Mayfield, Staffordshire (near the Derbyshire border) from around 1600, and probably much earlier. The Shropshire Froggatts exhibited an amazing propensity to marry their own cousins - see my article, 'Cousin, Will You Marry Me?'.
A branch of the Shropshire Froggatts emigrated to New Zealand, and is one of five families in that country, all of which have been very well researched (see 'New Zealand Froggatts').
I have included the transcriptions of several wills and obituaries of Froggatts from 1664 onwards (see 'Miscellaneous items of interest').
I have an electronic database of births (1837 to 1900) and marriages (1837 to 1909) registered in England & Wales (see 'Register of Births & Marriages'). I also have an electronic database of entries extracted from the whole of the International Genealogical Index ("IGI") for the British Isles, which covers mainly baptisms and marriages. The IGI entries span from 1548 to 1911, but as with the IGI in general, the coverage is only good between about 1690 and 1835.
For such an unusual name (or maybe because it is an unusual name) Froggatt is an extremely well researched name. I have had correspondence with about 65 fellow Froggatt researchers, most of whom are people who have contacted me by e-mail. I am asking all Froggatt researchers if they wish to contribute to this web site, even if only to briefly note their own interests, and I have a list of these on the 'Froggatt Researchers' page (though I will not publish researchers names and e-mail addresses without their consent unless they have already published a web site of their own). I also have an 'Appeals for Help' page, which you are welcome to contribute to. There used to be an active Froggatt Genealogical Society which published a regular newsletter under the secretarial direction of David Fall, who still conducts a One-Name Study of the name.
Please contribute your own Froggatt information to this site; that way it can grow to become a major repository for Froggatt information for the benefit of all current and future genealogists with an interest in the name.
Please contact me by e-mail if you think you have any interests in common with mine, or if you have anything that I could add to these web pages, such as any notes on your own Froggatt ancestors, any tales of general Froggatt interest, etc.
Last updated on 29 December 2002