Whittington Family

People with the Whittington surname come from several unrelated family lines.  This is because, in early England, many overlords assigned names to families based on their location and without regard to their relationships.  This was true for the Whittingtons and there were several places with that name in England.

Whittington was derived from the Old English "Hwinton" — meaning a farm or enclosure belonging to a man by the name of White.  The government required an identifying name for families in order to record them on the tax rolls.  People adopted numerous names, but the Whittington surname came from the location where they lived.  (The village where castle Whittington exists was originally called "Drev-Wen", which is Welch for White Town.)

Several places in England had the name Whittington: a place in Cotswold district, Gloucestershire; a village and civil parish in the Lichfield district of Staffordshire;[1] a parish in the city of Lancaster district, Lancashire;[2] a civil parish north of Hexham, Northumberland; a village and civil parish in Shropshire near Oswestry;[3] the village of Whittington near Worcester, Worcestershire;[4] a parish in the hundred of Scarsdale, county of Derby;[5] and perhaps other locations.

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

William Davies' The History Of Whittington is recommended reading.  It was written about 1810 and he describes the history of Whittington, Shropshire which is located near Oswestry and is the location of Whittington Castle.  This historical record begins in the year A.D. 843.[6]

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.

The English Whittington families were named for the places where they lived, meaning they were not necessarily related to one another.  Having families living in the same place and at the same time has caused much confusion and error as historians attempt to trace family genealogies.

A list 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 and an article 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