Some sites to explore
Friday, July 25th, 2008Research matters have gone rather quiet recently, though we are expecting some Y-DNA results fairly soon. To keep in touch, here are some sites I have visited recently.
CANTON etc IN FRANCE
This is a lovely site, the link recently sent to the Guild mailing list by Debbie Kennett (researching CRUWYS):
It gives statistics and population maps for individual surnames and of course I looked for CANTON, CANTIN, etc. This, of course, is part of studying the surname and should not be interpreted as any sort of indication of French ancestry for most Cantons outside France.
You will need some very basic French to use the site for simple location searches - and it is free of charge at that level. But be warned that if you follow other internal links to books, histories, etc, such things come at a price.
As an example of what the site has to offer: when I put CANTON in the search box (’votre nom’, then press ‘valider’), a list of birth statistics came up, one for each of four 25-year periods:
1891-1915 — 289 births / 1916-1940 – 405 / 1941-1965 — 575 / 1966-1990 – 586
A click on each period brings up a map, showing the distribution of the name by département. Cantonis found in small numbers in many areas, but the largest clusters are, in the earliest maps, in Pyrénées Atlantiques, Hautes Pyrénées and Bouches de Rhône. I imagine that these are the result of Spanish and Italian influence. Cantin has larger numbers - it is a typically French spelling (often a rationalisation of the personal name Quentin). Cantain has only 10 in 100 years (all in the north).
In a newsletter some years ago I mentioned, at least half-joking, that it would be good to count the footballer Eric Cantona among our greater ‘family’. His surname has just 11 entries in 100 years, all in Bouches de Rhône. As two of these are accounted for by Eric and his brother Joël, I imagine the other nine also belong to his family and may (probably someone reading this can say for sure) represent a single immigration, perhaps from Italy.
I will try to find time to write more about continental names-like-Canton in my One-Name Studies web page - I did this on my old personal website but newer contacts may like it afresh.
CANTON IN MINING ACCIDENTS
There’s a very interesting list of Mining Accidents published by the Coalmining History Resource Centre at
http://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/disasters/
Six Cantons are listed, including two injured men (luckily no fatalities) and some colliery owners.
Of the former, one is Sidney Canton aged 56 in 1928 - he is more usually Sydney in documents and is a member of line PM/P. He was a mason and, though I had several details of where he worked, I had no idea that he had worked down a coal mine.
Also injured, in Merthyr Vale Colliery, was Albert Canton, aged 20 in 1933. As I write, I cannot place this young man, so if anyone can help out I’d appreciate it. An Albert was born in 1912, but died age 2. All others are too old to pass for 20. Line PL was living in Merthyr Tydful but, again, there’s no Albert born about 1913. I hope someone will soon claim him!
The ‘colliery owners’ relate to the Pembrokeshire coalfield - more about them another time.
DECEASED ONLINE
This website was launched recently:
www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch
Details are being collected from municipal cemeteries and crematoria, so expanding on the more usual data from church and chapel graveyards. At the moment there are only 140,000 records from Kent & Sussex, but it plans much more. I know that a number of people reading this have non-Canton interests in that area. At present, while the site is being tested, it’s free to search.
The two Canton entries found are a couple from line GL/A3, Hubert Edgar and his wife Katherine Mildred.
Finally, I shall write again when the next DNA results come through. Do check the website at
http://www.familytreedna.com/public/CantonSurnameProject/
Revised 27.07.08 - thanks to Michael C. for pointing out a typo.