French Name Study

Profile managers: Greg Slade [send private message] and One Name Studies WikiTree [send private message]

This is a One Name Study to collect together in one place everything about the surname French and its variants. My hope is that other researchers like you will join our study to help make it a valuable reference point for people studying lines that cross or intersect. Please feel free to contact me or ask questions in G2G (just make sure you tag your questions with "French").

Specifically, I am seeking to find out whether the French name came into use independently in multiple places, or whether it originated in one place and then spread as Frenches moved around. (In other words, are all the French lines actually related, or are there a bunch of distinct families which happen to share the same name?)

To that end, rather than adding {{One Name Study|name=French}} to every single profile on WikiTree, what I'd like to try to do is categorise only the oldest known French in each family line. To do this, start with any French profile, and keep following the links to each father (or mother, in cases where the child took the mother's last name instead of the father's last name) until you either hit a dead end, or else find a father with a different last name. (Presumably, in that case, the "father" would actually be a stepfather, but there may be cases where somebody was born with one name and chose to adopt a different one, and in a case like that, you may just have proven that that French family line, at the very least, had an independent origin.) Once you reach the first person in a given French family line, add {{One Name Study|name=French}} template to that person's profile, and that will add a new family line to the French Name Study category.

Therefore, if you manage to move a line farther back in time (or, better yet, connect it to another French line which goes yet father back), please remove {{One Name Study|name=French}} template from the previous oldest French in that line to the new oldest French.

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Here's a clue I turned up back in 2005, while visiting England:

My mother and I were visiting Baptist heritage sites, and while we were at Loughwood, she spotted the surname "French" on some of the gravestones in the churchyard. Since her grandmother's maiden name was French, and she was born in Frome, Somerset (which isn't all that far away -- at least to a Canadian), she wondered if those Frenches might be related to her Frenches. So, we drove into Kilmington, where the Baptists built a new church after the persecution of Baptists ended, and looked for the Baptist church. Some very nice ladies listened to our story and said, "Oh, you should talk to Cyril! His mother was a French!" So, we got a guide to lead us to Cyril's house, and we had a nice chat with Cyril.

It turns out that Cyril's Frenches were originally Huguenot refugees. The locals couldn't pronounce their French surname, so they just called them "Les Frenches", and apparently the name stuck enough that it became their English surname. He had this astonishingly detailed family tree that he had hand-drawn, going back to the original refugees.

So at least some "Frenches" living in the area are descended from Huguenots. Of course, it seems likely to me that other, non-Huguenot families who emigrated to England for other reasons may well have gotten called "Les Frenches", too, which would complicate the picture somewhat. But even so, a clue is a clue.

Sub-Projects

If you've put up all of the Frenches in your family (or at least all the ones you've found so far), and are looking for something else to do, here are some sub-projects that you might be willing to help with:

Biographies

We need to make sure that each French on WikiTree has a narrative biography containing all the genealogically relevant facts about them (birth, marriage, and death at the very least). For information on biographies, see the Biographies help page.

Categories

We need to make sure that each French on WikiTree has the appropriate categories applied to their profile. For information on categories, see the Categorization help page and the Categorization Project.

Coats of Arms

Finding (or creating) well-rendered, but public domain, images of the various French coats of arms listed in Burke's General Armory, to add to the profiles of those people who have the right to bear each of them.

Connecting Frenches

Connecting all the Unconnected French profiles on WikiTree. (This can count towards the Connectors Challenge if you're feeling competitive.) For information on connecting profiles, see the Connectors Project.

• Progress: profiles: 13,554/14,825: 91.4%

Merging

• We need to merge any duplicate profiles for the same person into one profile for that person. For information on merging profiles, see the Merging help page.

Sourcing Frenches

Sourcing all the Unsourced French profiles on WikiTree. (This can count towards the Sourcerers Challenge if you're feeling competitive.) For information on sourcing profiles, see the Sources help page and the Sourcerers Project.

• Progress: profiles: 14,402/14,825: 97.1%
  • (Note: This number is derived by subtracting the number of French profiles which have the {{Unsourced}} template added to them from the total of Frenches on WikiTree, so it's not necessarily accurate, since adding the template is a manual procedure.)

Frenches in the Peerage

Making sure that all 518 deceased Frenches listed on ThePeerage.com have profiles on WikiTree.

• Progress: profiles: 156/518: 30.1%, sourced: 89/156: 57.1%, connected: 155/156: 99.4%,
  
  • (Note: This number is derived by taking the 847 Frenches listed on ThePeerage.com, and subtracting 5 duplicate entries who are listed both by nickname and by their given names, 180 entries where French is not their Last Name At Birth, and 144 living Frenches.)

Frenches in Wikipedia

Making sure that all 68 deceased Frenches with Wikipedia entries have profiles on WikiTree. (The real Frenches, that is. Not fictional characters, of course.)

• Progress: profiles: 42/68: 61.8%, sourced: 37/42: 88.1%, connected: 34/42: 81%
  • (Note: This number is derived by taking the 122 Frenches listed on Wikipedia, and subtracting 4 fictional characters, 11 entries where French is not their Last Name At Birth, and 39 living Frenches.)

In the columns above:

• "WP?" asks whether this person has a WikiTree profile. If you find a notable French who does not yet have a WikiTree profile, you can add their name here and leave that cell empty. If you see somebody listed on this page without a WikiTree profile, check to see if one has been added since this page was last edited, and create a profile for them if you like. (Then edit this page to put "Yes" in that cell.)
• "TA?" asks whether this person's profile (or the oldest profile in this branch) has the {{One Name Study|name=French}} template applied to it. If you find a French branch where doesn't have the template applied to that profile, you can add their name here and leave that cell empty. If you can edit their profile, please add the template, and then edit this page to put "Yes" in that cell.
• "CMT?" asks whether this person's profile has been connected to the main tree. If you see links at the bottom of the profile listing how many degrees that person is from Kevin Bacon, Queen Elizabeth, and three other notables, then their profile is connected to the main tree. If not, then they are not connected to the main tree, and this cell should be left blank. To find out more about getting a profile connected to the main tree, see the Connectors Project page.

Resources

• British Surnames: French
• G2G feed of questions tagged "French".
• House of Names: French Crests, Coat of Arms, and Name History Note: a bunch of sites selling coats of arms use this version, but Burke's General Armory lists seventeen different coats of arms for different French individuals, so your line may be associated with a different coat of arms (or none at all, if you can't demonstrate descent from one of the people who were awarded coats of arms).
• Internet Surname Database: French
• List of Frenches on Wikitree
• Orphaned French profiles on WikiTree.
• Unconnected branches with French profiles in them (sorted by branch size).
• Unconnected French profiles on WikiTree.
• Unsourced French profiles on WikiTree.
• Wikipedia: French (surname) including a list of notable Frenches with articles on Wikipedia that you could add as sources if you happen to be working on one of those profiles.
• WikiTree profiles that link to this page