My recent ancestral find

[Elizabeth]

Still no information on the origin of the surname though. One thing has become apparent though, my family are the only Rockheads in the world.

489 results on Ancestry... that's a lot of relatives. Are they all your greater family? They hail from quite a few different places.

[t_challa]

489 results on Ancestry... that's a lot of relatives. Are they all your greater family? They hail from quite a few different places.

From what my cousin in America and I can tell (we've both been doing research), all those mentions on ancestry.com are our family.
Earliest goes back to 1746 in Jamaica. Nothing earlier than that yet, but that's not uncommon for slaves in those days.

[Roderick Powell]

Look for a book "Slaves in the Family." American Origin. in Charlestown rice plantation area. written by journalist,decendant of plantation family: plantation sold to an oil company in 1920's this comes back to my theme of sea traders of Scottish origin in Southern England today.
Slave could be auctioned by slave transporter. to slave plantation master.

Could be Scottish slave master gives slave his sir name. ,Eg" Stone" . Son of "Stone".,sold by slave master to new master. Mr Smith., so son called after his father and given his own identification name ,his full name Smith Stone.
check out the Blues singers Mackinley Moreganfield. I trust I am correct, knickname Muddy Waters. Only a hunch. Now was Nick refering to "Old Knick" vis the Devil or Saten. ?
devils name, Not a christian name.
My cousin married a Johnstone, could have been a danish searaider , some claim, was Yhohanson or something similar.
Look at the name again. John Stone. Were the "Stones", stone workers in the Stuart Clan ?
If we go back to the famous negro blues singer Robert Johnstone;he sang about the sun going down and Old Nick being around to take his soul.

In the 1930's my Uncle left the family sheep farm in Scottish Lowlands to work on a harbour developement on the Gold Coast. He had a native house boy who was given his Scottish sir name. If one is looking for an engineer on a construction site, call his name and his house boy come running to report the visitor to his master.
The master had a son who had a Scottish sir name as a second christian name.
The son, my cousin, married a German wife and lived in Africa and England.
I like have two cousins who have Scottish names from our Gandmother 's maiden name,an Irish name from my grandmothers husband and to confuse the issue , I have a Welsh Sir Name from my fathers family.
I would say you are welcome to join the Clan , but the easiest answer may be to wear a regional kilt
Who can argue with you, if your geneology is as mixed as mine.
Perhaps one of our historians could please explain the names, Brown ,Black, White,Green,Smith,Cook, Miller, etc, as I understand the were all stewards to the king or the old clan Stuart, and had their problems from the time of William of Orange to Bonny Prince Charlie. Tried reading the Life and Times of Bonny Prince Charlie.

My guess is many of the seafarers and fishermen left Scotland in the 1600 S.
Did the miners end up in Wales and Cornwall ? Roderick.

[Nathan]

In a lot of instances, people who think they are of total African blood assume they were given their names by Slave owners. I know a gent who looks completely black but did the surname DNA test and since the paternal DNA changes so slowly, he has the same pateral DNA as the majority of his clan and is the product of an interracial union several generations ago. Not only is clan membership open to all holders of a particular name regardless of how they came to get the name, in many cases, people of colour are of the same paternal bloodline as the rest of their clan.

[TheOfficialBren]

Here, here, Nathan!

Geneology and biology often reveal some very interesting (and at times surprising) things.
A good friend of mine, a young African-American man by outward appearance, is actually half-caucasion (of maternal Spanish descent).
In the end we are all homo-sapiens.

I really enjoy reading about the different folks on here. It is really interesting and quite enlightening and enriching. Thank you, rabble, for sharing.

(sorry for the derail)

[Roderick Powell]

A sea captain from Poole in dorset ,another Captain Cook came home with a dark eyed spanish maiden.

Someone suggested I look Cypriot. Some suggest my cousin is an Indian Lady.

My mother and thee sisters had Jet black hair. The eldest sister was Blond.

My cousin married a blond of Scandenavian extraction who can wear the Johnson Tartan.

One daughter is blonde, two are dark haired like their four aunts. Roddy

[Roderick Powell]

Due to the interest of the Rabble,I understand sea raiders mixed the local geneology by their acts of rape and pillage on the south coast.

Dorset was raided by the Vikings burning Wareham.

The Portugese white slave traders raided the old village of Ringstead.Much of the village has
dissapeared.

Scottish Pivateers were wrecked in Warbarrow following the spanish amada. They were of red headed viking decsent.

The old fishing family was evicted by the war office in 1943 as the area was used for the training for American landing in France in 1944.


Further down the coast a village suffered spanish raids. Much Spanish blood in the village.

I met a gentleman from Wales, now living in Cornwall, he sounds welsh, but his father came from Northern Spain, to Wales.

Weymouth was packed with G I S for D Day embarkation.

There are coloured locals in weymouth born nine months after the landings.

A friend of mine went over with an artillery unit on D. Day plus one.The landing beach was carpeted with the bodies of Afro americans who had fallen on the beach.

My father has the Welsh name Powell, his grandfather lived in london and his son moved to Swanage a sea side holiday town with fishermen, in 1926

The holiday catering labour all came to Swanage from Wales.

When I was a kid we could have migrated to australia for ten pounds a head.

The old time big fishing vessel skippers had a house in every port and they ,and their families followed the fish around the coast every year.Food for thought. Roddy

[Roderick Powell]

It is now 3 Am in Dorset Uk So I am going for a wild guess. In Dorset the Woodheads lived near a wooded headland.

I would guess Rockheads lived near a Rocky headland or outcrop. Could be anywhere.

Original location of family might give a clue Roddy