Calling all Cowlings!
I have blogged about members of my Cowling family a few times, including my recent post: the Cowlings of Cambridgeshire.
Today I would like to invite all Cowlings and Cowling researchers to get involved with the Cowling One Name Study Project and encourage you to join the Cowling DNA Project.
My own research is so far based in Cambridgeshire but the projects are ultimately worldwide in scope. My ancestor, Sell Cowling, was born in c.1775, probably in Cambridgeshire, and raised his children in the village of Ickleton but here I get stuck. There were lots of Cowlings (sometimes Cowlins or Cowlands) in Cambridgeshire and I have a couple of “possibilities” in terms of his parish of birth, but there are also some gaps in the records.
I began to expand my searches to other parishes in Cambridgeshire and then into neighbouring counties and then realised what I really wanted to know was: how do all these Cowlings fit together? Are all Cambridgeshire Cowlings related? If we look at surname distributions maps we see two areas of concentration: one in Yorkshire (most probably arising from places of the same name) and one in Cornwall. Are these two separate groups or are they all related?
In order to find out more I decided my next step was to take a step back from my particular research problem and look at the bigger picture: looking at all Cowlings and how they may fit together. I registered the Cowling One Name Study with both the Guild of One Name Studies and The Surname Society and you can find out more about investigations so far via the link to the study page here. So far the traditional genealogy research route has been slow, due to time constraints, but I have begun to pull together family groups for all the Cambridgeshire Cowlings and am actively collecting data for England and Wales as a whole. This is a very different type of research than my usual professional genealogy work, it has to be, due to the volume of data collected and I am enjoying learning different methodologies and techniques as I go.
However, I can’t claim “ownership” for all Cowlings of course, I have just decided to formalise the project. This is a collaborative effort. If you would like to contribute or share your own research please get in touch. I will certainly be sharing everything I find.
Traditional research is only one approach. You may have noticed I have a particular interest in the uses of DNA testing in genealogy. This a fantastic tool when looking at a surname study. I have already made contact with a number of my father’s 5th cousins and DNA matches in Australia, all of whom descend from the same grandson of Sell Cowling who emigrated there:
However, the Ancestry test is an autosomal DNA test and matches will only be found with those with common ancestors in more recent generations. As we move beyond fifth cousins we will be less likely to find DNA matches using this type of test.
Instead we need Y-DNA. This traces the patrilineal line – the father of the father of the father etc – going back many generations and is what we need to work out whether all these branches are indeed connected. I have set up a Y-DNA project at Family Tree DNA here.
If you are a male Cowling by birth / know of one in your family and would either be willing to take a Y-DNA test or would like to find out more (no pressure!) then PLEASE do get in touch. Contact me before purchasing a test as I can get a better price through my Guild DNA project.
I have also recently set up a Cowling ONS Facebook page.
This is a place to share photographs and Cowling stories and share research updates. Do pop by and say “hello”.
