Whittington Family

Not all Whittingtons are related.  Why?  Taxes.  In early England, the representative of the king — typically the sheriff or lord of the manor — collected the taxes, called Poll Taxes.  They needed a way to be certain everyone paid their taxes and the enumerator often appended a descriptor to the name of the people they recorded.  A simple solution was to list them with the name of where they lived.  The derivation of the name comes from the old English "Hwinton" or the Welch "Drev-Wen" which translated means White Town, so it appears the name came from the location where they lived.  England had people living there from antiquity, so it should come as no surprise there is a diversity of ethnic origins in the Whittington family and this is evident in the results of our DNA Project.

The medieval Whittington Castle[1] dates from the 11th or 12th century and is in Shropshire near Oswestry, near the border of Wales.  The village near the castle was originally called "Drev-Wen", which is Welch for White Town.  William Davies' The History Of Whittington is recommended reading.  It was written about 1810 and describes the history of Whittington.  His historical narrative begins with the year A.D. 843.

Several places in England were called Whittington, including a place in Cotswold district, Gloucestershire; a village and civil parish in the Lichfield district of Staffordshire;[2] a parish in the city of Lancaster district, Lancashire;[3] a civil parish north of Hexham, Northumberland; a village and civil parish in Shropshire near Oswestry;[4] the village of Whittington near Worcester, Worcestershire;[5] a parish in the hundred of Scarsdale, county of Derby;[6] and perhaps other locations.  (There are two locations in England named Whittingham.)

Recorded in a township named Whittingham is one "Warin de Whitington", the medieval merchant and politician and legendary Lord Mayor Richard Whittington who was from Gloucestershire, with evidence his ancestors lived in Staffordshire.

Whittington families later moved to the American Colonies, being initially found in Maryland and Virginia, and later to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, West Indies and virtually every other place around the world.

Having unrelated families with the same surname, living in the same place and at the same time has caused confusion and error as researchers, over the years, have attempted to trace family genealogies using traditional genealogical methods.  Recent DNA evidence has brought a different, but unassailable, type of evidence for the family historian and genealogist.

References and locations in England regarding the name Whittington:

• Whittington History Society.  Whittington, near Lichfield, Staffordshire.
• Whittington: Geographical and Historical information from the year 1824
• Whittington, Staffordshire



• Whittington Castle in north Shropshire.  The first official mention of Whittington Castle is in 1138, during the civil war between two claimants to the throne of England, Stephen and Matilda.  At that time Whittington Castle was owned by William Peverel, a powerful Norman knight who fought alongside William the Conqueror during his conquest of England. Peverel is recorded as fortifying Whittington Castle against King Stephen, siding with the Empress Matilda. It is likely in this period that the old wooden keep was torn down and replaced with a more permanent stone structure.  See the articles about Whittington Castle - Artificial Mound in England and the Wikipedia article Whittington Castle
• Family Search Whittington, Shropshire, England Genealogy and Wikipedia Whittington, Shropshire
• Whittington, Lancashire, England Genealogy
• Whittington, Worcestershire, England Genealogy
• The History of Whittington by William Davies
• Whittington, Worcestershire; also The Village of Whittington
• Whittington Tump

Take care when viewing family histories or alleged family crests or coats-of-arms.  Recent DNA evidence has brought many genealogies into question and heraldry should be considered a novelty as it was reserved for very wealthy and influential men and few of our Whittington ancestors possessed coats-of-arms or family crests.

View our Whittington DNA Project and, if you are a Whittington male, please consider joining the Project.

Footnotes