Genealogy Chat

I have one or two ancestors in a 'travelling' branch of the family who's first names were Arkless, Archles or Harkless (depending on what the enumerator heard I suppose). Does anyone know the origins of the name or what it means? I have wondered if it was Romany. but have not found any other strange names on that part of the family.

I would assume it was originally someone's surname.
Have you tried a google search, as that is what everyone on here would do.

That was the first thing I tried. I understand the name first appeared in Scotland, but I have no rellies from there. I was just curious as to whether it was Romany.

According to Public Profiler World Names Harkless is found almost entirely in North America, with South Dakota having the heaviest concentration.

Arkless is found everywhere in the UK, with the heaviest concentration in the North of England, particularly the Newcastle-on-Tyne area.

The site says it doesn't know the origins of the name, but I believe Romanies originally came from Eastern Europe (Romania?) and there apparently aren't any there now.

Thanks for that Andysmum. I hadn't thought of trying that as my rellie has the name as a middle name. I hadn't thought it could be a surname. I'm very curious now as to where the name originated from in the family as they all appear to have lived only in the Midlands.

Glad to help. The second highest concentration is Birmingham, so perhaps your family were the original Arkless's!!

There is an old occupation of "Arkwright", being a maker of arks (wooden chests/boxes) so perhaps there is a connection there.

Middle names are very commonly surnames -- the mother's surname, the father's mother's or grandmother's surname, in particular.

My gr-grmother has a middle name that was also her paternal grandmother's middle name. She seems to have been named for that grandmother, who died earlier the same year. Where she got the name from, I haven't figured out (doesn't seem to have been her own surname before marriage).

Try a search at FreeBMD

http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl

for the names as surnames, all events, not specifying dates or places.

Harkless is rare, Arkless very common, concentrate around the area Andysmum mentioned. Could be interesting just to browse.

You could also search for marriages between each of those surnames and the various other surnames in that part of your tree, again no dates or places, to see whether any connection turned up.


edit -- also search for people with the names as a middle name. You can do that for searching for all events, given name

* Harkless

There are about a dozen births with that middle name, a lot more for Arkless. Again, you might see some breadcrumbs to follow among them!

Thanks for sharing those thoughts Janeychuck. I have come across one or two surnames as middle names in my tree before, but this name I had never even heard of. A great uncle was called Arkless and this branch of the family descended from a traveller 2 generations further back. There was a family of travellers in the Midlands with the same surname that I think are likely to be related, but I haven't been able to make a connection yet. One of those was called Harkless, another Archles, so I had thought it may be a Romany name. Not so, it seems!

Many thanks for your input and I'll do some of the searches you suggest to see if I can find anything that may lead to a connection. Who knows.....sometimes a crumb will take you to a loaf of bread!!

Oh yes Birmingham sounds a very possible area Andysmum. I'd never heard of an Arkwright .....might be a connection with the name...thanks. The things you learn doing FH !