K/NIBB/S  ONE NAME STUDY

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Before 1700	1700 - 1837	1837 - 1900	Year 2000

The maps are like thumbnails ie click on any one of them and they will take you to a larger 'County' map of Britain.   The redder the county, the more K/NIBB/S lived there.  By pausing with the cursor over the initials of a County, you can [hopefully] find out how many K/NIBB/S were there during the period covered by the map.  Well it works on my system; I've yet to explore Java scripting which would probably yield better results.   A feature of the maps is that they can be used to find out who is researching K/NIBB/S in a particular county at a given time. More information about this is given below.  Also, if you go to the County listings, you'll find some tidbits of information about the K/NIBB/S in each County.  Try it and see.

Here's yet another chance to see the spread of K/NIBB/S in Britain from before 1700 to 2000, this time within a 'morphing' map.  And with links to each larger map - nothing too much trouble!

Free DHTML scripts provided by
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I have also attempted a brief statistical analysis  OR  click here to go to World Maps

Another credit should go to Muriel BOLTON who gave me the inspiration to develop this project and much help via her GENmap program.

The numbers of individuals shown on the maps for each County comes from the K/NIBB/S database.  I cannot in any way guarantee their total accuracy but they do give a very fair representation of K/NIBB/S recorded as being there.  So for a lone baptism, there will be 2 entries (father and child) but his entry would not be repeated for any subsequent offspring.  A duplicate entry could occur if he moved County or Country but I make no apology for that.  Recording the move helps show the dispersion of K/NIBB/S which is the whole purpose of the maps.

Before 1700, parish records are the principal source (mainly as extracted from the IGI and VRI but also from many other records) and similarly for the period from 1700 to 1837.  If I come across new pockets of K/NIBB/S as yet undiscovered, I will amend the maps accordingly.  The General Record Office Birth Indexes have been used exclusively for the period 1837-1900.  These are complete, so the numbers of births can be relied on but of course this was a century of great social and technological advancement leading to much movement of the population throughout Britain and overseas.  Such movements will not be apparent from this map alone, unless family births occurred in different Counties.  Finally, for the year 2000, the data comes from UK Info 4, a CD Rom listing all K/NIBB/S on the UK Electoral Register.  I have not excluded K/NIBB/S spouses from the statistics for this particular map but there again they should be balanced by female K/NIBB/S who married out!

The colouring is representational only.  No comments please that the colour used for the density of K/NIBB/S found on one map differs from that on another.  Remember that the periods covered by each is not of the same duration and inded the Year 2000 map is just that - a snapshot of adult K/NIBB/S at that time.  Nevertheless, that in itself tells us something and the projections I have made (eg based on family sizes, marriages out, etc) are, in context, reasonably supportable.

You are invited to submit details of your K/NIBB/S family living in a particular County at a given time.  The style suggested is that given here.

The idea is that a click on a County will take a visitor to all similar entries submitted for that County.  To see how it works, go to Map 1700-1837 and click on Northamptonshire.  You will note that the names of the submitters are highlighted.  Clicking on them will take you to their tree.

You will find the entries duplicated for the Counties mentioned on the same and other maps for the relevant periods.   The more entries there are (and the more detailed they are) the greater the chance of finding matches or teaming up with somebody to research in the shared study area.  The success of the project relies on your participation, so why not submit your item now to me at [email protected] while it's fresh in your mind.    You will be helping other researchers and are more likely to find your own missing links.

You are encouraged to agree that your listing can be be linked to your name and can opt to omit living persons.  Alternatively the link could be to an external website such as Genconnect or whatever.

A future development will be an alternative tree display to the traditional drop line tree/listing.  Meanwhile, a demographic tree, for want of a better name, is provided for interest and research purposes.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

The earliest K/NIBB/S were clearly in Warwickshire and Oxfordshire.  It has been noted elsewhere how strongly the KNIBB (originally KNYB) family were represented in the village of Fenny Compton from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.   They spread outwards from there and neighbouring places, KNIBB becoming K/NIBB/S as a result doubtless of illiteracy among the itinerant families and unfamiliarity of the local clergy at the new locations with the original spelling.  A similar migration occurred in Kent.  The predominant name there (and in Lincolnshire) was NEBB/S and it is a moot point whether they are related or not to each other and/or the K/NIBB/S.  There are even a couple of NIBS/KNIBBEs in Scotland but these seemed to have died out or moved on.  Pockets can be found elsewhere all as shown by red dots.  You can click on the relevant County lists appearing on the pre 1700 map to see how the spelling varied between both forms of the name at a given location.

The most interesting observation, for me at least, is to see the increasing populations of K/NIBB/S in the conurbations during the nineteenth century.  This comes as no surprise bearing in mind the Industrial Revolution and the general move away from agriculture into industry.  Obviously Birmingham attracted many of the rural K/NIBB/s from Warwickshire and Oxfordshire but a fair few went to Manchester and Liverpool, rearing families there.  Likewise London K/NIBB/S probably came from the adjoining counties of Buckingham, Kent and Surrey but there had always been K/NIBB/S families in the capital.

As the years went by, although many remained in the Cities, others left for pastures new until in the modern age, it is difficult to detect any large clusters.  Whereas some immediate family members are to be found within the same area, an equal number have dispersed and the liklihood is that this trend will increase as of course is the pattern of society nowadays.

The K/NIBB/S data thus reflects general population movements and undoubtedly there is no lack of a spirit of adventure which is borne out when one looks at the worldwide distribution of the name, coming almost exclusively from England.  The telltale 'e' on the end of the name invariably denotes families with a continental European background.

The County Lists on the Year 2000 map has a breakdown of the K/NIBB/S in each 'occupied' County.  If you can detect a pattern then I'd be interested to hear from you.  Fnally, I should mention that there are still a fair few K/NEBBS in Kent and elsewhere. The One Name Study does not extend to them, at present anyway.
ACJ
January 2001


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