An OSMOND Loses Out...

...but was he one of ours?

From the Police Gazette for Monday 6 July 1863

The furthest we have traced our OSMOND line back is to Stephen OSMOND, 1657 - 1713, of Ogbourne St George in Wiltshire. From the beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century the family were in the area of Hurstbourne Tarrant in Hampshire, some fifty miles or so north east of Okeford Fitzpaine, so no close geographical connection to William OSMOND. I have six William OSMONDs in my records but none looks a likely match to this William OSMOND.

A project based at University College London (UCL) that is investigating the distribution of surnames in Great Britain, both current and historic and displays its results at the publicprofiler web site. The Distribution of OSMOND surname in 1881 page shows the OSMOND name appearing in 1881 across the south western counties of England, as well as some in South Wales and, of course, London. The South Wales connection is probably through coal mining - there were coal mines in northern Somerset until recent times and mining families from there would move to the more prosperous South Wales coal field in search of better wages.

By Keith Pickering (Own work)
[CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

As you might expect, the OSMONDs had spread out across the country in the more than one hundred years between 1881 and 1998. However, the Distribution of OSMOND surname in 1998 page shows that they are still mainly in the South of England although there is an isolated bunch in the Galashiels area, just north of the border between England and Scotland. What was that all about? There must be an interesting story behind their appearance as a little island so far from the south of England.

And, of course, there is said to be a family of rather well-known singers in the United States with the surname OSMOND, though I understand that their roots are in Oxfordshire...

So I have found no direct connection between our family and William OSMOND - a pity, as that watch, if it had ever been found, would have made an heirloom with an interesting story behind it.