Welcome

This page has come into being as a result of the increasing quantity of information I am publishing and the need to separate generic Glanville and Glanvill research from that pertaining to my own known family and ancestry (which includes other names). I am collecting and publishing as much information as I can about Glanvill(e)s who were either Born in, Married in or Died in the United Kingdom. If your Glanvill(e) ancestors had no known UK connection, I suggest you follow the Where are You? link (left or below) to see if there is a fellow Glanvill(e) researcher working in your territory. In order to avoid falling foul of the Data Protection Act (and now possibly the European Laws on Human Rights), I am only publishing information on people known to be deceased, or are assumed deceased through age. Should I have inadvertently published information on someone living, please email me and I will remove any references Genealogy pages on my website are typically updated monthly. Finally a plea: - recent email viruses have showed me that a large number of people are obviously putting my address into their Outlook email address books - and hence later hitting me with viruses. There is NO NEED to do this - simply bookmark this page instead so you can find me later.

Appeal

It would be very much appreciated if anyone holding information pertaining to the GLANVILLE surname would be willing to share it through me. I am in contact with a number of researchers who are looking into (for example) The period Sir John Glanvil spent in the Tower of London. Writing academic pieces concerning some Glanvill legends, namely: Eulalia and the murder of William Page; Francis Glanvill and his disinheritance; Francis Glanvill and how he found his wife. This will be published in Spring 2003. Ashburton Glanvills. The ancient Glanvill town house in Tavistock, Devon. One or two mistakes in Glanville-Richard's Glanville pedigree. Portraits of Glanvill(e)s Naturally not all of this can be published here, but the greater the input I can bring to the researchers, the greater the "arm-twisting" I can bring to bear for permission to co-publish here. I would always fully accredit any contributions.

Origin of the Name

One school of thought says that we Glanvilles are descended from Robert de Glanville who accompanied William The Conqueror to England in 1066, Robert being squire of Glanville in Normandy, France. To that end I visited Glanville (20 miles east-north-east of Caen, 5 miles due south of Deauville on the D118) in August 1995 and indeed found Robert wasn't there - so the story must be true!! If you'd like some Snippets of information about the name, try this link. Andrew Glanvill, in 1853 wrote Jottings during a Holiday Ramble in Cornwall describing his holiday to his children. Here is my page on Glanvilles - Ancient to Modern. A word of warning, if you are using a modem it may take a moment to download, and because the information is in a table, your browser may not show the information until it is all loaded. In 1882, William Urmston Searle Glanville-Richards published the book Records of the Anglo-Norman House of Glanville A.D. 1050 to 1880, copies of which still exist. I have transcribed the contents. "The name" is not a good definition, as I have found at least the following spellings that I am confident relate to the same name:- Glanvell, Glanvile, Glenfell, Glanvill, Glanvil, Glanvel, Glanfull, Glanfill, Glenvell, Glenvele There are other names (and their variants) that may be derivations of the Glanville name, such as Glanfield and Gloyne. I have undertaken some work on Analysing Glanvilles, by population distribution, by Age Analysis and by Commonality of Christian Names. Amongst other things, this work indicates that Glanville-surnamed people in England and Wales today occur just once in every 23,556 head of population.

Surname Interests
I have published on-line information pertaining both to my own family ancestry and of my Glanvill(e) researches. The information is to be found published here.

Glanvilles in Records

I have created a page containing information about the occurence of the surname as found in various old records such as Trade, Residential and Post Office Directories, Public Records Office entries etc. This includes instances of some of the various spelling variations. I have not included the references to all the actual source documents used. Dead Docs (Admons, Obits, Probates, Wills) provide a means of identifying family relationships. These transcriptions may help. The Access to Archives database allows a search on Keyword "Glanvill" and yields quite a lot of information.

The Wealth of the Glanvilles

The Telegraph (English Newspaper) carried an article on 26 April 2011, by Richard Savill... ... ... People with Norman names wealthier than other Britons People with "Norman" surnames like Darcy and Mandeville are still wealthier than the general population 1,000 years after their descendants conquered Britain, according to a study into social progress. Research shows that the descendants of people who in 1858 had "rich" surnames such as Percy and Glanville, indicating they were descended from the French nobility, are still substantially wealthier in 2011 than those with traditionally "poor" or artisanal surnames. Artisans are defined as skilled manual workers. Drawing on data culled from official records that go back as far as the Domesday Book as well as university admissions and probate archives, Gregory Clark, a professor of economics at the University of California, has tracked what became of people whose surnames indicated their ancestors had come from either the aristocratic or artisanal classes. By studying the probate records of those with "rich" and "poor" surnames every decade since the 1850s, he found that the extreme differences in accumulated wealth narrowed over time. But the value of the estates left by those belonging to the "rich" surname group, immortalised in the character of Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, were above the national average by at least 10 per cent. In addition, today the holders of "rich" surnames live three years longer than average. Life expectancy is a strong indicator of socio-economic status. Popular names of the medieval elite who were descended from Norman families include Balliol, Baskerville, Bruce, Darcy, Glanville, Lacy, Mandeville, and Venables. Popular artisanal names that emerged in the 14th century include Smith, Carpenter, Mason, Shepherd, Cooper and Baker. The article is to be found published here.

Where Are You?
If you wish to contact other Glanvilles... Use this link Where are You?